'Can’t live with myself': Even Trump 'superfans' refuse to endorse president’s key strategy

The fiscal hawks who upset President Donald Trump’s attempt to raise the debt ceiling last December are still a presence in the U.S. House today, and many don’t like the taste of the magic math behind the president’s tax cuts.

The New York Times reported Wednesday afternoon that anti-debt diehards in the Republican Party have no love for party leaders’ argument that extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts costs “nothing” because it maintains budget policy that’s been underway for eight years.

“I can’t live with myself if I go back home and I added more debt and deficits without any kind of correction whatsoever,” said Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) a financial analyst who campaigned on lowering the national debt. “I couldn’t live with myself.”

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“The American people want and expect results, not more fiscal trickery,” said Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.)

Extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts would not be a cheap endeavor. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in 2018 that the 2017 law would cost taxpayers $1.9 trillion over 10 years. More recent estimates reveal making the law’s temporary individual income and estate tax cuts permanent would cost an additional $4.6 trillion through 2035, upping the nation’s debt to between 132 and 149 percent of GDP by that year.

These numbers are tracking badly with Republican members who consider proposed budget cuts by the Senate to be insufficient to fund Trump’s 2017 law. The Senate version only removes about $4 billion over the course a decade, while Burlison and others prefer the $2 trillion that Republican House members proposed cutting from government programs such as Medicaid and SNAP and other initiatives.

Trump holds reverential power over both the Republican Party and its voters, however, and he is working party members hard to reconsider their longstanding anti-debt priorities. Over the course of days, or even hours, fiscal hawks may come to believe their voters will swallow the logic break of ballooning the debt in the name of pleasing Trump. Right now, however, some members still aren’t buying it.

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“Let the president spend time with people whose minds he might change,” said Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.). He’s just not going to change my mind.”

Read the complete New York Times story here.