The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has released a new estimate on the amount of economic growth the Republican tax cut bill is expected to add to the economy and the resulting amount of revenue it will generate for the U.S. Treasury.
Republicans have long claimed that tax cuts pay for themselves and top Republicans from Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump's top advisers are insisting as much today, but the Tax Policy Center estimates that the unimpressive growth the bill is expected to add will generate little revenue.
From the Wall Street Journal:
It would reduce households' taxes, encouraging people to spend more. It would encourage some people, especially lower-earning spouses, to enter the workforce. And it would lower corporate tax rates and speed up deductions for investments, encouraging saving and an influx of foreign capital.
Those effects would be muted, in the long run, by the effect of higher interest rates caused by larger public debt, according to the analysis. The tax bill would increase gross domestic product by 0.6% in 2018 but that effect would fade over time, according to the estimate.
In all, over the first decade, the larger economy created by the House bill will yield $169 billion in additional tax revenue. That's not enough to cover the $1.4 trillion revenue loss from the core of the plan.
The cost of the GOP's corporate tax cuts weigh in at about $100 billion per point, meaning their bill would be generate revenue equal to less than 2 percentage points of their 15 percent corporate tax cut.
The idea that tax cuts pay for themselves is not the only claim blown to smithereens by recent analysis.
You may recall that top Trump regime officials and pundits spent most of the spring and summer months claiming their tax cuts could increase economic growth by as much as 3 percent. We already knew that was a fantastical claim, but the Tax Policy Center estimates the economy would grow by less than 1 percent and that growth would quickly fade.
The only place you can find positive analysis of the GOP tax cut bill is at the U.S. Treasury where Mnuchin has purged the findings of previous administrations.