The US Senate republicans voted on Monday to make $US3.8 trillion ($5.8 trillion) disappear.

By endorsing a tricky approach to accounting for an extension of the massive tax cuts Donald Trump enacted during his first term as president, the Republicans turned a $US3.3 trillion increase in US government debt into a $US508 billion decrease.

The Republicans are using a process that requires only a simple majority of 51 of the 100 senators.Credit: Getty Images

The Republicans are using what’s called a reconciliation process to fast-track their omnibus One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

That process, governed by a particular set of rules, enables them to avoid filibusters that could significantly delay or even prevent a vote on the budget bill and requires only a simple majority of 51 of the 100 senators. It includes, however, rules aimed at restricting federal deficits, including a provision that fiscal bills can only add to debt for 10 years.

The Republicans used the reconciliation process in 2017, in Trump’s first term, which is why the Trump corporate and individual tax cuts are scheduled to expire later this year. If that occurred, Americans would effectively be confronted with tax increases that would amount to about $US4.5 trillion over the next decade.

That was never going to be allowed, regardless of which party was in power.

The Republicans, however, don’t want to take responsibility for the impact that extending the cuts will have on US deficits and debt relative to what would have happened if – as they had structured them – the tax cuts were allowed to expire.

The difference between extending the cuts and extinguishing them, once new tax concessions and spending cuts are included, is at least $US3.3 trillion over a decade, or $US3.8 trillion if interest on the increased debt is included.

That’s why the Republicans have resorted to accounting gimmickry.

Conventional congressional........

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