The Republican Budget Bill Is an Economy Killer
This legislation promises to become a poster child of Congress working against the country’s interests and in stubborn opposition to economists’ advice.
What have they done?
Photographer: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
Congress passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” and is sending it to President Donald Trump for his signature so it can become law. Any hope that enough Republicans would have the courage to put the needs of the economy and America’s fiscal position before tax cuts for the rich was met instead with callow cost fiddling.
The damage this bill will inflict has been laid bare by the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office in its estimates for how much it will add to the country’s already bulging debt and deficit while exposing the accounting gimmickry underpinning Republican forecasts. It’s important to know that the methods used by the CBO for estimating the cost of any policy needs a counterfactual to compare against. It has always used the laws currently in force, such that a bill’s cost equals revenue and spending under the current law less the revenue and spending under the proposed law. But Republicans say current law (which has the 2017 tax cuts expire) isn’t right, current policy (in which the 2017 tax cuts are in place) is. And with that, the trillions of dollars the CBO says the bill would add to deficits in coming years just… disappeared!