Of course, the story Republicans will tell is that the bill will juice the economy, turbocharging economic growth and job creation. (And even though Republicans spent the eight years of the Obama administration saying any economic stimulus measure was too expensive, they’re now perfectly fine putting at least $1.5 trillion on the national credit card in the name of tax cuts.) There’s little reason to think that said juicing will actually happen, though.
After all, as I noted recently, we’ve tried all this before. The Bush tax cuts didn’t unleash the economic nirvana they were supposed to, while both the Clinton and Obama tax increases didn’t cause the economic devastation conservatives claimed they would. Overall, the evidence that cutting federal taxes unleashes growth is thin to nonexistent. And with unemployment already at 4 percent, how much lower do Republicans think it’s going to go?