By Ryan Ellis
This week, the U.S. Senate and then the U.S. House of Representatives will consider a budget resolution for FY 2017. It has no purpose whatsoever except to create a vehicle for the repeal of Obamacare.
Congress should pass this budget resolution. It doesn’t commit anyone to any policy choices at this point. All it does is create reconciliation instructions for the chambers to pass Obamacare repeal shortly after President Trump is inaugurated.
This budget resolution has nothing to do with the actual budget, unlike any budget resolution in memory. All it does is create reconciliation instructions for the chambers to pass Obamacare repeal shortly after President Trump is inaugurated.
It is not itself the reconciliation vehicle–rather, it’s the womb that gives birth to reconciliation. All it does is create reconciliation instructions for the chambers to pass Obamacare repeal shortly after President Trump is inaugurated.
To vote against this budget resolution is to signal that one is not interested in repealing Obamacare. All it does is create reconciliation instructions for the chambers to pass Obamacare repeal shortly after President Trump is inaugurated.
(Did I mention that all the budget resolution does is create reconciliation instructions to repeal Obamacare with a simple majority vote in both chambers? Good.)
Defeating this budget resolution would be very bad for taxpayers.
As I have detailed, Obamacare repeal is the biggest guaranteed tax cut of 2017. To repeal Obamacare means repealing 20 new or higher taxes totaling over $1 trillion over the next decade. Many of these taxes fall directly on the middle class. The tax cuts that go along with Obamacare repeal include:
cutting the capital gains and dividends tax from a top rate of 23.8 percent to 20 percent
repealing the tax increases associated with the individual and employer mandates
cutting the top Medicare payroll tax rate from 3.8 percent to 2.9 percent
eliminating a 40 percent excise tax on high-cost (“Cadillac”) health insurance plans
allowing more families to claim medical itemized deductions
eliminating new taxes and limitations on health savings accounts (HSAs) and flexible spending accounts (FSAs)
eliminating industry taxes on medical devices, as well as on health insurance plans and prescription medicines
eliminating the ridiculous and ineffective excise tax on tanning salon services
The Congressional Budget Office has pegged this tax cut at $1 trillion over the next decade.
Now, the budget resolution does not itself cut taxes. Again, it does nothing except create the bill that would repeal Obamacare. But a vote against the budget resolution is a vote to blow up the entire process, and has to count as a deep wound to taxpaying families and small employers.
Step one in repealing Obamacare and cutting taxes on the American people starts this week with passage of the FY 2017 budget resolution. Congress should not screw this up.
Read more here.