Comment by Reason077

Besides "kicking the can" to another administration, the 5 year thing is a hack to get budget legislation past the CBO.

The CBO calculates costs over 10 years, so if you introduce a tax cut that sunsets after 5 years it looks much less bad (for the deficit) than it really is. Then you hope that in 5 years some other legislation comes along to renew it for another 5 years...