The one trick the GOP had to make their tax bill look good failed spectacularly

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House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

• Dynamic scoring is a budget trick that makes tax cuts look more sensible than they are by estimating how much economic growth the cuts will create, and adding that growth to budget projections.
• But not even that trick can save the GOP's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center.
• Even when dynamic scoring is applied to the bill, it still adds to the deficit.

In Washington, there's a magical way to make a budget look balanced even when it's not - it's called "dynamic scoring." Basically, it allows bean counters to use growth projections to offset income lost from tax cuts.

Dynamic scoring involves using economic models that supposedly show the effects of fiscal policy like a tax cut on growth. The idea is that a tax cut, by putting more money in investors' and consumers' pockets, can add more juice to the economy, helping to make up for larger deficits caused by lost tax revenue.

And since the 1980s, when a bunch of the GOP legislators currently trying to ram the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act down America's throat were much younger people, it has been a bandaid on budget-busting bills - using generous projections to show increased economic growth generated by tax cuts that would help the cuts pay for themselves.

That's called getting something for nothing, and if that's not magic I don't know what is. Unfortunately, this time around the Tax Policy Center (TPC) estimates that not even the magic of dynamic scoring can make this tax bill look good. It simply does not generate enough economic growth to make up for lost revenue from the cuts.

"We find the legislation would boost US gross domestic product (GDP) 0.7 percent in 2018, have little effect on GDP in 2027, and boost GDP 0.1 percent in 2037," the TPC report said.

Using regular math, and not the magical math of dynamic scoring, the Senate Finance bill would increase deficits by about $1.4 trillion from 2018 through 2027, TPC said. Around 2028 some of the tax breaks for individuals start to expire, and then "the bill would reduce deficits by about $174 billion before taking into account macroeconomic effects and extra interest."

Throw dynamic scoring into the mix and the bill's cost only goes down by an additional $34 billion. That results in a "small net decline in deficits of about $208 billion over the second 10 years," according to TPC.

In other words, not even magic can make this bill revenue-neutral. Even generous models show it will add to the deficit, and add to the debt burden future (and some current) American tax payers have to take on.

Tax Policy Center

The TPC reasons that the tax cut will boost demand from households a bit in the short run, but since the labor market is almost at full employment, that won't be anything to write home about. It could also boost the labor supply temporarily too - but only temporarily since those benefits will "be reversed after nearly all individual income tax provisions expire in 2025," causing most individuals' taxes to go up.

Corporations will get to keep their tax break, but once deficits go up, the TPC says that high interest rates could temper their investments.

"...all these models tell roughly the same story: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act won't produce dramatic increases in the economy nor would it come close to paying for itself," the report concluded.

This goes against what Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said to Congress back in January.

"We do believe in dynamic scoring and, with the appropriate growth, I think we want to make sure that tax reform doesn't increase the deficit," he said.

Of course, maybe he didn't realize what the tax bill would do since his office never actually produced an analysis of its economic effects. We imagine the task would have taken too much time away from critical Bond-villain-role-playing/arm-length-leather-glove-shopping time with his wife.

We wouldn't want that.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Last year around this time I wrote that Trump would try to use this budget trick to steal from an entire generation. I was right, but I didn't realize how ugly this would be. I didn't realize how little anyone in the GOP would care about even appearing to avoid adding to the national debt.

One thing is putting lipstick on a pig. Another is realizing the lipstick keeps melting off of its snout and saying - oh whatever, Wilbur still looks ready for the county fair. Pack him up, no one will notice.

Dynamic scoring doesn't go far enough to plug the holes in this tax bill, but since no one in the GOP actually cares about the appearance of fiscal responsibility, the administration might as well have not even bothered to use it.