House passes meaningless Senate budget without changes, which means tax reform is on

All right, not totally meaningless. It will probably be the basis most of the spending that happens throughout fiscal 2018, although there's a difference between a budget resolution and an actual budget. The House and Senate did not just agree to pass an official federal budget and send it to the president for his signature. That hasn't happened since 2010 because Democrats figured out they could just keep passing continuing resolutions that would bake in the "one-time" stimulus of 2009 as a permanent budget baseline, and for the most part the media would not call them out for it. They were correct, and now Congress is out of the habit of passing real budgets.

But this resolution was necessary because, according to idiotic Senate rules, you can't pass any tax measure under reconciliation unless it's attached to a budget measure that purports to be revenue-neutral. This resolution qualifies tax reform for reconciliation, and does little else. That's exactly why the House did what it almost never does and passed a Senate resolution without changes. Quibbling over the details would have been a waste of time because this isn't a real budget. But the tax reform bill will be real, and that's the priority right now:

“By passing this budget today, House Republicans just provided the legislative runway for pro-growth tax reform,” Brady said. “Our successful vote will allow us to move forward quickly on delivering the first overhaul of America’s tax code in more than three decades.” Brady also said the Ways and Means Committee will consider the legislation in a committee markup beginning Nov. 6. A markup session is where the committee goes through the bill line by line and revamps the package before advancing it to the floor. The tax bill is the top item on the GOP agenda and would be Trump's first major win in Congress. The goal is a full rewrite of the inefficient, loophole-laden tax code in hopes of lower rates for corporations and other businesses and a spurt of economic growth.

Brady told reporters on Wednesday morning that he's still looking at curtailing tax-free deposits in 401(k) retirement accounts, a move that could raise revenue in the near term as retirement savings shift to Roth-style accounts that are funded with after-tax earnings. Trump says he opposes curbing 401(k) donations, however, which tossed a monkey wrench into the process. Key decisions about tax brackets, including a new bracket for high-income earners, remain up in the air. Outcomes on other provisions are unsettled as well, lending a sense of chaos as GOP leaders rush to fulfill a goal of passing the measure through the House before Thanksgiving.

By the way, if you want to argue that it's absurd to pass a meaningless budget resolution just to make a tax bill qualify for a majority vote, I'm not going to argue with you. It's beyond absurd. The way the Senate operates is so bizarre, I think the public would revolt if they really understood how much of what needs to happen gets bottled up and stopped cold by Senate rules. I'm all for changing it from top to bottom. But when you haven't had 3.0 percent growth in a decade, this isn't the time for a fight over Senate rules when it's going to prevent you from addressing the growth question. If this absurdity was necessary to addres the tax code, then as insane as it is, navigating through the Senate rules to pass it was undoubtedly the right thing to do. Besides, there's nowhere near a majority of the Senate willing to change these rules, and that's the only way to do it. So kudos to the senators who figured out a way around them to tee up tax reform for success. And I know that includes my favorite friend Mitch McConnell, so kudos to him too.

As for the substantive case for the tax bill, the boss made that here. Now, having said that, we've thought legislation was teed up for success before, only to have a small group of Republican renegades kill it. How confident are you that it's not going to happen again? John McCain needs to do something to reclaim his status as the media's favorite Republican after Jeff Flake stole the title the other day. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski never saw a conservative idea they liked. Rand Paul might object because the plan doesn't repeal the 16th Amendment. We're a long way from victory on this, but we had no chance to get there without this budget resolution passing. Now we've got a chance. Let's not blow it for once.

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