House Democratic Rules Package Could Mean More Spending, Higher Taxes

From Daily Signal.com (Jan. 2):

Rather than promoting fiscal restraint, the House is considering rules changes that would move in the opposite direction. The results could mean more deficit spending and higher taxes for many Americans.

Here are four proposed rules changes the House should reconsider.

1. Adoption of a “Gephardt rule,” which would allow the House to avoid a direct vote on the debt limit.

Under this rule, a vote on a House budget resolution would double as a vote to raise the debt limit in the House. In early 2019, we are likely to hit a debt of $22 trillion. Americans deserve a true stand-alone vote on the debt limit in both chambers of Congress.

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2. Eliminating dynamic scoring.

The proposed rules package would eliminate a requirement that major legislation take into account the economic impact of the policy changes it contains. The official score of how tax legislation affects revenue would no longer take into account how policy changes affect the way people, businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs alter their behavior in response.

This would deny the widely accepted reality that government policy can and does change people’s behavior and affect the economy. In essence, it would allow Congress to ignore the negative effects of its own policies.

Getting rid of dynamic scoring would make it easier for Congress to raise taxes on all Americans. Lawmakers would be able to pretend that higher tax rates will bring in lots of new revenue, while denying the negative effects of a slower economy.

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3. Removing supermajority protection against tax increases.

The proposed House rules would strike the requirement that a supermajority of three-fifths of Congress vote to increase taxes on the American people. Without this protection, the House would be able to more easily increase income taxes, endangering the tax cuts passed a year ago.

4. Allowing amendments to appropriations bills that increase net spending.

Under current House rules, an amendment to a spending bill cannot cause a net increase in budget authority. In other words, any proposed amendments that would increase or create new spending must be fully paid for.

The new rules package would abandon that requirement, and it couldn’t come at a worse time. The Budget Control Act spending caps, one of the few tools to restrain spending, are on life support. Absent these caps, Congress may pass billions of dollars in unpaid spending.  [read more]

The article goes on and gives three rules for making Congress more discipline like “account for interest costs when considering legislation.”

The Dems like the above rule changes because they don’t like restrictions on their power.