WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump and Republican congressional leaders are on the brink of achieving their top priority, centerpiece tax legislation, but only after a series of inaccurate claims and broken promises.
Lawmakers have made _ and then retracted _ pledges that their planned overhaul bill wouldn't raise taxes on any middle-class families. Trump and his top aides have said the changes won't cut taxes for the highest earners, statements that are demonstrably false.
And all of them argue that the proposed tax cuts, estimated to reduce federal revenue by more than $1.4 trillion, won't increase federal deficits, an assertion that's been contradicted by Congress' official tax scorekeeper.
"The challenge is that there were a lot of promises made that can't live comfortably with each other," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "The biggest loser in all this was their commitment to fiscal discipline, which went away as fast as you can blink."
The White House didn't respond to a request for comment for this story.
House and Senate GOP leaders are trying to hammer out compromise legislation for Trump to sign before the end of the year. If they succeed, their tax overhaul will immediately become the top policy issue in the 2018 congressional elections. Here are a few statements they might expect to see in opponents' campaign ads:
