After the drama of electing a new speaker of the House and the changing of control in the Senate, the House yesterday approved an obscure but significant rule change requiring the economic effects of legislation to be included in a bill’s official cost to the Treasury, the New York Times reported today. The change on “dynamic scoring” — ardently sought since the 1990s by Republicans — could ease passage of major tax cuts by showing that their impact on economic growth would substantially reduce their cost to the Treasury. The move is widely seen as a way for Republican leaders to set ground rules for an ambitious overhaul of the entire U.S. tax code. “We’re saying, ‘If you think a piece of legislation is going to have a big effect on the economy, then include that effect in the official cost estimate,’ ” said Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), the new chairman of the House Budget Committee. “So if you think a bill is going to help or hurt the economy, then tell us how much.” Opponents said the rule change would invite politicized scorekeeping, further tilt policy to benefit the rich, and expand the budget deficit. “The basic problem remains that macroeconomic work is useful in the laboratory but not in the field,” said Edward D. Kleinbard, a law professor at the University of Southern California and a longtime chief of staff at the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which officially tallies the cost of tax proposals. “The models are too simplistic and the range of the possible outcomes so great that it opens the process to too much in the way of political intuitions.”
