Tee up tax reform.. I mean tax corruption..

Senate Republicans unveil budget blueprint to tee up tax reform

The 89-page plan sets up the special power of budget reconciliation GOP leaders can use to advance tax reform with just a 50-vote threshold in the Senate.

By SARAH FERRIS

Senate Republicans released their long-awaited budget blueprint Friday for the upcoming fiscal year, paving the way for a tax overhaul without the need for Democratic buy-in.

The 89-page plan, which the Senate Budget Committee spent months drafting, sets up the special power of budget reconciliation GOP leaders can use to advance tax reform with just a 50-vote threshold in the Senate.

Nov. 13 is the tentative deadline for tax writers to submit their plans for an overhaul to the budget panel.

Under the budget proposal, Republican tax writers can add up to $1.5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, giving lawmakers more flexibility as they attempt a once-in-a-generation revamp of the U.S. tax code. With more wiggle room to slash revenue, GOP legislators hope they will be able to go even lower on tax rates for individuals and corporations.

The $1.5 trillion figure comes out of a compromise struck this month between deficit hawk Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and tax-writer Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who both sit on the budget panel. Corker had sought a revenue-neutral tax plan, while Toomey had called for as much as $3 trillion in lost revenue over 10 years.

“This budget is especially important because it will allow us to get to work on our pro-growth, pro-family, pro-jobs tax reform plan,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wrote in a statement Friday.

As expected, the Senate’s pared-down version veers drastically from the House version. The House budget would require a tax plan that does not add to the deficit, though some tax writers feared that approach would force Republicans to seek less-ambitious tax cuts.

In an unsurprising but contentious move, Senate budget writers ditched long-time conservative calls for mandatory cuts. While the House budget would deliver $203 billion in mandatory cuts, the Senate asks only one committee to find $1 billion in savings over 10 years — a disparity sure to be a sticking point when both chambers seek a compromise during conference negotiations in the weeks to come.

The only savings in the Senate version would come from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has been tasked with finding at least $1 billion over a decade.

Lawmakers widely expect that projected savings to come from opening up oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The Senate budget blueprint does not appear to give Republicans another shot at repealing Obamacare next year, as some lawmakers have advocated.

The Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over most Obamacare programs, is expected to focus entirely on tax reform with its $1.5 trillion instruction.

Obamacare’s fate is not assured, though, since some budget experts say the Finance Committee could choose to use its existing instructions to rollback Obamacare, or simply seek authority to do so in another — separate — budget resolution next year.

In recent months, Senate budget writers had also mulled reforms for Dodd-Frank financial rules and student aid programs, according to multiple sources. But the budget document does not include instructions for either the Senate Banking Committee or the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee.

Senate Budget Chairman Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) wrote in a statement that the blueprint “puts our nation on a path to balance,” in part by reducing spending by $5 trillion over 10 years. But the budget resolution itself includes no details on how lawmakers could achieve that spending reduction.

In sharp contrast to the House budget, the Senate's would comply with the budget caps mandated by sequestration. (If the Senate chose to ignore the sequester, it would violate a budget rule and prompt a point-of-order on the floor).

Under the upper chamber's plan, the military’s budget would be capped at $549 billion over the next year, to comply with current law. The House budget, which is not subject to points of order, boosts defense spending to $621.5 billion.

The Senate Budget Committee plans to hold a vote on the fiscal outline next week and is expected to have enough GOP support for approval.