Toomey: Passage of tax overhaul bill a ‘very big deal for me’

“It makes sense that the senator from Wall Street is doing everything that he can to pass this bill,” said Marc Stier, executive director of the liberal Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center. “It makes no sense that the senator from Pennsylvania is doing so.”

Mr. Toomey said the bill would provide benefits across the income scale and would more than pay for itself by stirring new economic energy.

“The vast majority of working and middle-income individuals and families get a direct tax cut,” he said.

On the face of it, Mr. Toomey’s fervent advocacy of the tax bill contradicted another core element of his fiscal philosophy — opposition to deficits.

Nearly every recent nonpartisan analysis predicts the tax bill will increase deficits. So do staunch deficit hawks and a wide array of top economists.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model, for example, predicted $1.9 trillion to $2.2 trillion in new debts, even while accounting for economic growth. Most other analyses projected at least $1 trillion in added debt.

Mr. Toomey has opposed spending bills for much less.

He voted last year, for example, against plans to spend $600 million on opioid treatment, citing the red ink.

On this measure, however, he negotiated a critical GOP deal to allow for $1.5 trillion in new debt to fund the plan and, according to the Washington Post, floated the idea of an even bigger cut to stake out a stronger negotiating position.

Mr. Toomey predicted a stronger economic boost than many analysts expect, saying 0.2 to 0.4 percent of growth above existing projections over the next decade would be enough to pay for the cuts and possibly cut the deficit.

“You have to be very pessimistic about America’s future to think that we can’t achieve that, and I am not pessimistic about America’s future,” he said.

Some Republicans are eyeing another long-standing aim for fiscal conservatives like Mr. Toomey: scaling back spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Mr. Toomey has long argued that they are growing too fast and must be reined in to be viable for future generations.

Democrats are ready to pounce if that happens, noting that Republicans have just undercut federal revenues.

Mr. Toomey said it’s about spending.

“You can’t tax your way to a solution,” he said.