Revenue, Tax Cuts
The plan would generate more revenue than the U.S. would collect if Congress were to extend all of the income tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of 2012. That makes it similar to proposals released over the past year by President Barack Obama and his bipartisan fiscal commission.
At the same time, it would be considered a tax cut under official congressional scoring rules, which assume that the Bush-era tax cuts expire as scheduled.
The numerical and ideological gap over the proper level of revenue may be difficult for Congress to bridge. The House Republican budget sets revenue at a level assuming all of the expiring tax cuts are extended permanently and the health-care law is repealed. That's about $4.2 trillion less than the Congressional Budget Office baseline over the next decade, and about $2.7 trillion less than the senators' proposal.
A report from the House Budget Committee and Chairman Paul Ryan said the proposal lacks sufficient detail about how it is measuring savings.
"It does not provide annual spending and revenue totals by category, relying instead on savings relative to three different baselines," the report said. "So, it is unclear what exactly the spending and tax proposals are."