03.19.25

ICYMI: Merkley Slams Wall Street Journal Editorial Board Endorsement of Republicans’ Attempt to Hide Tax Giveaways for Millionaires and Billionaires

The WSJ Editorial Board Endorsed Congressional Republicans’ Attempt to Use Current Policy Baseline to Hide Trillions That Will Add to the Deficit

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In Case You Missed It, following the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board’s endorsement of using current policy baseline in the Republicans’ budget proposal, U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, slammed the editorial board for advocating for the use of “magic math” in an attempt to hide the fact that the tax giveaways for millionaires and billionaires will add trillions to the deficit.

“Congressional Republicans need to realize tax giveaways cost money. Refusing to measure something doesn’t mean it goes away,” wrote Merkley in his letter to the editor.

Sen. Mike Crapo, Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. Jason Smith, Chair of the House and Ways Means Committee, have publicly floated using a current policy baseline, instead of the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO’s) standard current law baseline, for the upcoming Republican reconciliation bill. Crapo, Smith, and other Congressional Republican leaders are advocating that Congress ignore law and decades of precedent so that their costly proposals, like a $4.5 trillion extension of the Trump tax giveaways, appear to be free. The Republicans’ goals are twofold: to jam a noncompliant bill through the fast-track reconciliation procedures, and to hide the fact that they’re blowing up the deficit, again, with even more tax giveaways for the rich. 

Merkley recently highlighted a dozen budget policy experts from both sides of the aisle decrying the budget gimmick.

Read Merkley’s full response HERE and below.

Your editorial “A Baseline for Tax Reform Success” (March 14) encourages Congress to use magic math to extend tax giveaways for millionaires and billionaires, pretending it will add zero dollars to the deficit. Yet Republican and centrist budget experts have been calling the tactic of using the “current policy baseline” what it is: a gimmick. 

George Callas, former senior tax counsel to House Speaker Paul Ryan, has made clear that “if Congress makes the expiring TCJA provisions permanent without additional offsets, the Treasury Department will have to borrow an additional $4.5 trillion over the next 10 years.” Marc Goldwein, of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, has likewise said that “this would be the biggest and maybe most economically costly gimmick in American history.” Former Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor evidently agrees, contending in a recent CNBC interview that Republicans can’t “hide this from being a real issue.” Congressional Republicans need to realize tax giveaways cost money. Refusing to measure something doesn’t mean it goes away.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.) 
Portland, Ore.
Sen. Merkley is ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee. 

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