Republicans will retain the Democratic-picked head of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the in-house body of experts that estimates the cost of tax legislation for Congress.
The current chief of staff for the committee, Thomas Barthold, will remain in place in the 114th Congress. Meanwhile, Republicans are mulling the status of Congress’ other official budget estimator, the Congressional Budget Office.
In a statement to Bloomberg, the heads of the tax-writing committees in the Senate and House, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., endorsed Barthold, calling him a “strong, nonpartisan leader.”
“He and his staff produce quality, objective reports and analyses that help shape the major policy debates that are important to hard-working American taxpayers. We look forward to continuing our work with him,” the lawmakers said in a statement to Bloomberg.
The budget scorekeeping process has become a subject of interest in recent months, as the new Republican majorities have sought to reform the way revenue estimates are perform to incorporate dynamic scoring.
Dynamic scoring, favored by conservatives, takes into account added revenues from faster economic growth. It could make some tax cuts appear less expensive to the Treasury than conventional scoring, which assumes no changes to economic growth from tax changes.
House Republicans changed the House rules for the 114th Congress to mandate dynamic scoring for major legislation, a move opposed by Democrats. It will be up to Barthold to prepare analyses of major tax legislation using dynamic scoring for the official estimate.
Barthold has performed such estimates in the past, most notably for former Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp’s draft tax plan released in early 2014. Then, the JCT presented a range of estimates based on different assumptions to supplement the official revenue estimates.
Republicans have not yet said that they will reappoint CBO director Douglas Elmendorf, who is also a Democratic appointee and whose term technically expired earlier this month. The GOP plans to replace him with an appointee of their own who is more amenable to dynamic scoring, according to multiple reports. Elmendorf’s status has been the subject of controversy on both the left and right.
House Budget Committee chairman Tom Price of Georgia, who has a lead role in determining the CBO director appointment, said Monday that reforming the budget process “is absolutely imperative.” He added that Republicans “got off to a pretty doggone good start” by changing the House rules.
Barthold was originally appointed in 2009 by then-Senator Max Baucus of Montana, now the U.S. ambassador to China, and Rep. Charles Rangel of New York.
Barthold joined the JCT in 1987 and holds a PhD from Harvard.
