Washington • Republicans began planning for a day like Thursday the moment they took control of Congress four years ago, almost immediately changing the way tax cuts would be officially scored. Instead of just calculating how much reducing taxes would add to the deficit, the new system would also take into account how much economic growth would follow tax relief.
It was a way to codify, in the rules of Congress, Republicans' belief that tax cuts largely pay for themselves.
Yet on Thursday, the calculation didn't go the way they had long wanted. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation ruled that the tax plan Republicans had hoped to move swiftly through the Senate would add $1 trillion to the deficit — even after accounting for the positive impact from economic growth.