How come the Rs need only 51 votes to pass their tax giveaway?

[stopbush]

It will add $1.4 TRILLION to the debt. How is that revenue neutral? I thought they could only use the simple majority threshold if a bill was revenue neutral. Why don’t they need 60 votes?

Confused.

[FakeNoose]

1. The bill already passed in the House of Representatives

Now all they need is for the Senate to pass it. Then Trump has to sign it.
Then we're all screwed.

[SCantiGOP]

2. Still needs conference committee

There would be two bills; they have to be merged into one.

[dhol82]

3. Yeah, dont they have to discuss all the naughty bits that will end up in the final bill

that will end up on Bozo’s desk?
Really hoping it doesn’t make it through the senate.

[standingtall]

4. No it was a different bill that passed in the house

the house bill would ad 1.7 trillion to the deficit to much to avoid the filibuster. After the Senate passes this it will be sent back to the house where it will pass, Trump will sign it and then we will be screwed. Apparently 1.5 trillion in deficit increase means deficit neutral in republicanism.

[BigmanPigman]

5. Someone asked the same question on DU easier today.

It takes 51 votes and there is the Byrd Rule. It is frustrating and very confusing to me...it seems that they make and break rules to suit them at any moment...like Gerrymandering.

[marylandblue]

6. Can't increase the budget deficit after 10 years

Deosn't matter what it does it the national debt before 10 years. So all the tax cuts are set to expire in 10 years.

[rainin]

7. Not all the tax cuts expire.

The tax cuts for the corporations are permanent.

[marylandblue]

9. Yes that's true

Last edited Wed Nov 29, 2017, 12:49 AM - Edit history (1)

Only the individual rates expire, but with the other changes, most people will be paying a higher effective rate than they are now, so I guess that offsets the permanent corporate decrease.

"Fascism is corporatism."
-Mussolini

[Wounded Bear]

8. Because of the effect on the deficit...

they can pass it with a sunset clause on the deficit effects through a process called reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority.

I'm not going to try to explain it any further. "Reconciliation" is the key. It provides special rules for them to circumvent the ability of the minority to filibuster.

[unblock]

10. Under reconciliation rules it only has to fit within the budget resolution

The budget resolution they already passed (by simple majority), allowed for $1.5 trillion to be added to the debt over the next 10 years. So that’s the cap.

It can’t add to the deficit at all *after* those 10 years, which is why some of the provisions expire before that.

Obviously it’s a loophole the can drive be a truck through. They could have allowed $100 trillion for the tax cut (increasing the debt by that much) in the budget resolution if they could have stomached it and saved themselves some headache now, making it easier to pass a tax cut without sweating a few hundred billion here or there.