The Republican budget bill, a $3.7 trillion tax cut packaged with $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, is deeply problematic legislation from almost any perspective — including those of its authors. The Congressional Budget Office has the details about how it will be expensive and ineffectual. But for Republicans, President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is creating what amounts to an existential crisis.
For half a century, Republicans have been committed to the policy of lower taxes to aid the economy — impervious to any evidence that tax cuts are inefficient and prohibitively expensive. At this point, to walk ...