A reminder that beyond simply keeping the federal government open, the next few months will continue to be a rich tapestry of we're boned.
The Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday that the United States is expected to bump up against its borrowing limit a month earlier than previously expected, a function of last year’s $1.5 trillion tax cut, which is resulting in less revenue for the Treasury Department.
According to the budget office, the borrowing limit will most likely need to be raised in early March after the “extraordinary measures” to extend borrowing employed by the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, are exhausted.
That means that even as Republicans continue to toss out plastic cups from their we-cut-taxes-for-rich-people parties, the tax plan has already hastened the need to bump up the need to raise the borrowing ceiling by several weeks. Not to worry, says Team Trump; it may be causing big deficits now but soon the magical trickle-down unicorns will fill our coffers with magical trickle-down money that will make this all turn out fine.
The Trump administration has said that faster economic growth spurred by the tax cuts will eventually allow the cuts to pay for themselves. Mr. Mnuchin has acknowledged that the additional revenues will be backloaded over the 10-year budget window and that he does not expect to see an increase in government revenues this year.
This notion, that the magical trickle-down cash is just over the next hill, nestled in a wee little patch of flowers you of course can't see yet, has been the assertion after every tax cut for the wealthy Republicans have proposed from the days of Ronald Reagan until now; it has never once panned out. Whether this is evidence that Mr. Mnuchin is lying or merely evidence that he is indifferent to history is, as always, up to your own interpretation.