While this is not going to be an "April Fools!" column per se, it certainly is going to deal with some rampant foolishness from the Republicans in Congress right now. Because what they are trying to do is to replace actual math with nothing short of fantasy math. They are making this attempt to pull the wool over the taxpayers' eyes in order to reward billionaires, without it "costing" a thin dime -- when in reality, it's going to cost upwards of $5 trillion.

First, some budgetary basics. Tax cuts cost the United States Treasury money. Republicans always try to fool everyone into believing another fantasy ("Tax cuts always pay for themselves!") but the reality is that big tax cuts blow big holes in the budget and increase the annual deficit and national debt.

When budgets are proposed, they are "scored" by how much they will cost and how much revenue they will bring in. Any difference between those two leads to either a surplus or a deficit, depending on which is larger. The budgetary rules in Congress make it a lot easier for them to pass "temporary" proposals than to make permanent changes, and budgets are scored on what effect they will have for the next 10 years.

If a budget proposes changing something -- the tax code, for instance -- then each change gets scored as to how much it will cost. Often times, the costs are too high to get enough votes to pass. So costs can be lessened in a number of ways. One is to delay when new programs or changes take effect. One is to "sunset" them after a number of years, meaning they will expire.

Remember Joe Manchin? He gleefully halted Democrats from passing budgets that he considered too expensive. Which meant programs had to be changed -- kicked down the road a few years, or phased in slowly. Say the original score for a Democratic proposal came in at $200 billion over ten years. Manchin would balk, so they'd rewrite it so the program didn't even take effect for three years -- meaning the cost would drop to $140 billion. Costs could be cut even further by having it slowly phased in, so the full program wouldn't be in place for another three years. That might get the program down to only $100 billion, at which point Manchin would deign to vote for it.

The other way to limit the costs is to sunset the provision at some point. This could be "at the end of 10 years," which would mean it was technically a temporary change, not a permanent one. Or an earlier sunset might be agreed to, as a sort of gamble. Say you were a senator pushing for a new program, but Manchin balked at the cost. So you rewrite your program so it only lasts five years instead of ten. That slashes the price tag in half. You fully believe that your new program will be wildly popular with the American people, and thus a future Congress (five years from now) will have their hands tied -- your program will be so popular that Congress wouldn't dare to end it -- they'll have to vote to continue it on.

When the Republicans passed a big tax cut during Donald Trump's first term in office, they did not make it permanent, merely temporary. The sunset comes this year. All of those tax cuts are going to end next year, if Congress does nothing. Since the Republicans are now in charge in Washington, they now want to extend them another 10 years. This is going to cost a lot of money -- an estimated $4.5 trillion or more (some estimates put the cost at over $10 trillion).

Before we get to the GOP's fantasy math, a big point needs to be made. Technically, since taxes are slated to revert to what they were before the Trump tax cut took effect, what the GOP will be passing will be another "tax cut." But you have to put that term in scare quotes, because even if they successfully pass a very simple bill ("all these tax cuts will be extended for another 10 years," for instance), nobody's taxes will actually go down. This limits the political usefulness of boasting about lowering everyone's taxes, obviously. The GOP will be stuck explaining: "Well, if we hadn't passed this, your taxes would have gone up, so you should thank us for your big tax cut," when nobody's actually going to see their taxes actually reduced from 2025 to 2026 (or beyond).

Democratic Representative Richard E. Neal recently wrote an article in the Washington Post, explaining the idea that Republicans have latched onto:

Faced with sticker shock at this price tag, Republicans are contemplating requiring Congress’s official scorekeepers -- the [Congressional Budget Office] and the Joint Committee on Taxation -- to use what is known as a "current policy baseline" to measure the cost of extending their tax law. This means measuring the bill’s cost against a hypothetical world in which its deficit-increasing provisions have already been extended.

In simpler terms, it means pretending that extending the Trump tax law costs nothing.

To justify this, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are using a simple logic: This tax law has been in place for eight years. To extend its provisions is not a "tax cut" for taxpayers who have been used to paying their taxes at this level for eight years. Therefore, we should not portray the new legislation as a new cut.

While this logic is tempting, it's like telling the American people, if you paid for a family vacation for the last three years, there's no need to budget for future vacations; they're all free now! (There's no shortage of other examples offered by budget experts.)

. . .

Even if Republicans force the congressional scorekeepers to write a "zero" on a piece of paper, it doesn't change the fact that trillions of dollars that would otherwise be paid into the U.S. Treasury will no longer be paid. It doesn't change the fact that the United States will have to borrow more to meet our obligations. It won't change the outlook for the bond markets, for interest rates or for our credit rating agencies. It will just be a number on a piece of paper that signifies nothing.

In other words: fantasy math. Or, as Neal closes the article with: "let's not cook the books." It's all bookkeeping straight out of Wonderland, bearing no resemblance to actual reality.

Republicans are also going to have to struggle with several other deficit-exploding proposals from Trump, such as making tip income, Social Security income, and overtime pay all tax-free. That's going to cost even more money, on top of extending the earlier tax cuts.

Right now, the Senate parliamentarian is considering the GOP proposal to use fantasy math. However, the parliamentarian does not have the final word, as any ruling of theirs can be overturned by a simple majority vote on the Senate floor. This is a drastic thing to do, but I certainly wouldn't put it past Republicans, at this point.

The Republican Party used to stand for being "fiscally conservative." Well, the budget hawks would certainly make a lot of noise when Democrats were running things, at least. They'd get quieter when a Republican was in the White House, but they have never resorted to outright fantasy before. Perhaps there are enough staunch fiscal conservatives left in either the Senate or the House to derail this foolish plan. All it would take would be four GOP senators or two or three GOP House members to stand on principle. We'll see, after the parliamentarian issues a ruling, whether that will happen or not.

Democrats, of course, are (hopefully) going to try their hardest not to let Republicans get away with their "Hey, presto! Zero!!!" fantasy math. They should point out to the public the ridiculousness of the entire concept, with every chance they get. Because it doesn't matter whether Republicans want to admit it or not, extending the tax cuts is still going to cost around $5 trillion or more. And that's before they start piling other tax cuts or spending on top of it. That is the reality of the situation. You'd be a fool to think otherwise, in fact.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant