Tax Bill With 100% Bonus Depreciation May Move Forward in Senate

A new wrinkle, Punchbowl explained, is that "Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who has said he's 'favorably disposed' toward the tax package, is now floating the idea of attaching it to his big-ticket bill reauthorizing a compensation program for radiation victims. RECA, as it's known, got 69 votes in the Senate last month."

Hawley told Punchbowl Monday night "that he would vote for the tax bill with RECA attached. The Missouri Republican believes this could be the difference-maker for some of his GOP colleagues."

The Wyden-Smith bill "is fully offset albeit partially through the use of arbitrary expirations, which might lead to significant future costs," according to the committee. "The RECA bill, by contrast, has no offsets and would add a reported $50 to $60 billion to deficits over a decade."

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said Tuesday in the statement that the Senate "should not turn the House's tax bill, which in its current form would not add to the debt, into a budget-buster.

Given our untenable fiscal situation, it would be preferable to move in the opposite direction of finding more savings to create a bill that would reduce the debt and do so without relying on arbitrary expirations," MacGuineas added.

"What we should most certainly not do is turn the House's more responsible bill into a fiscally reckless bill by adding a layer of unpaid-for spending. Given our dismal fiscal situation, tax and spending legislation should really be focused on deficit reduction," she explained.