President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” would cut taxes by $3.7 trillion while adding $2.4 trillion to the national debt, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says.
The CBO released its report on Trump’s bill on Wednesday. The report also estimates that it would create an additional 10.9 million people without health insurance under the bill, including 1.4 million who are in the country without legal status in state-funded programs.
CBO’s analysis of the House-passed version of the bill shows a larger deficit impact than the version that House Republicans initially brought to the floor, which was estimated to raise deficits by a net $2.3 trillion over a decade.
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One of the notable changes in the tax cut package was a higher cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, which the GOP increased to help secure the bill’s passage in the narrowly divided House. With the revision, the federal government is projected to bring in about $128 billion less revenue over 10 years than the original bill, contributing to wider budget deficits.
Reforms to Medicaid and other healthcare programs are estimated to reduce spending by an additional $97 billion over a decade in the House-passed bill when compared with the chamber’s initial proposal, bringing the total to nearly $1.1 trillion.
The Trump administration and congressional Republicans have criticized the CBO’s analysis, arguing that the budget watchdog underestimated the growth in federal tax receipts spurred by greater economic activity as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that passed in 2017.
The House passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on May 22 on a narrow 215-214 vote that went largely along party-lines. Just two GOP members voted against the bill, citing concerns about spending and deficits.
That sent the bill to the Senate, which is considering revisions to the bill ahead of a potential vote in the weeks ahead.
Republicans hold a narrow 53-47 majority in the upper chamber, which could present challenges in approving the bill. Several Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., have expressed opposition to the bill due to their concerns about its impact on the national debt.
If the House-passed version of the bill is revised by the Senate, the bill will have to go back to the House for another vote before it can go to the president’s desk and become law.
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