Corporate tax cuts should be very stimulative.”
Representative Dave Brat, Republican of Virginia, who spent most of his career as an economics professor, said, “You’ve got to come clean with people
that this is not optimal, but tax cuts are a way to drive productivity.” The pain of a short-term increase to deficits, he said, was pain worth enduring for the sake of growth.
“Reforming taxes in a way that worsens our fiscal condition is counterproductive
because adding to our national debt hurts economic growth,” he said in a statement Wednesday.
The broad Republican support this week for President Trump’s plan to sharply reduce taxes suggests
that those who hang on to austere concerns about debt will now be facing former allies who want to chase economic growth.
“This is about math, not mystery and magic,” said Mr. Simpson, who was a chairman
of President Barack Obama’s bipartisan commission on the federal debt in 2010.
Josh Gordon, the policy director of the Concord Coalition, another group
that advocates fiscal discipline, said it was heartening that Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, have expressed a commitment to changes that are “revenue neutral.”
Representative Peter Roskam, the Illinois Republican who is chairman of the Tax Policy Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee, warned
that his party should resist taking the easy route and passing temporary tax cuts in favor of making deeper changes to the tax code.
