Tax deal doles out year-end goodies for NASCAR tracks, racehorses, college students

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Washington Times:

Congressional leaders agreed to a budget-busting set of tax cuts late Tuesday as part of a year-end, clear-the-decks deal that marks a major reversal from the last four years’ focus on deficits and streamlining the tax code.

 

While the total cost of the package had not been publicly estimated by the Congressional Budget Office, it was expected to total in the hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade — undoing in one swoop many of the deficit gains the GOP had won under then-Speaker John A. Boehner.

 

Instead, the 233-page document moves away from deficit-cutting and embraces dozens of special tax breaks that presidential candidates in both parties had said they wanted to eliminate.

 

The deal explicitly exempts itself from budget rules that normally require all new spending or tax cuts to be offset by tax increases or spending cuts elsewhere in the budget.

 

The bill will be voted on by both the House and Senate later this week, as Congress tried to wrap up business for 2015.

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Ryan's lost hope?