The U.S. will face a recession if the Senate fails to pass President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Office of Budget and Management (OMB) Director Russell Vought warned Wednesday.
“We’ll have a recession,” Vought said. “The economic storm clouds will be very dark. I think we’ll have a 60% tax increase on the American people.”
Vought testified before the House Appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday. And while the White House’s 2026 budget request was the intended subject of Wednesday’s hearing, the conversation turned to the reconciliation process for Trump’s “one big, beautiful” bill.
Trump ally Elon Musk, Senate Republicans and even some regretful House GOP members have cast their doubts on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act this week after it passed by a hair in the House less than two weeks ago. The bill is under consideration by a Republican-led White House and Congress.
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The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Wednesday reported that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will cut taxes by $3.7 trillion while raising deficits by $2.4 trillion over a decade.
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The report also estimates it would leave 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.
The national debt rose to $36,215,207,426,690.65 as of June 4, according to the latest numbers published by the Treasury Department. That is up about $806 million from the figure reported the previous day.
Vought has decades of conservative policy experience, serving during Trump’s first administration, and has a reputation among Democrats for contributing to “Project 2025.”
When asked if the CBO’s analysis was accurate, Vought replied, “No, I think it’s fundamentally wrong.”
“It will lead to reduced deficits and debt of $1.4 trillion,” he added. “It will reduce mandatory savings of $1.7 trillion. I don’t think the way they construct their baseline, not only does it not give a fair shake to economic growth, but it fundamentally misreads the economic consequences of not extending the current tax relief.”
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Vought criticized the CBO for not including how extending Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) would affect the economy.
“The degree to which we would have a recession or, worse, if the tax relief is not extended, is something that they just fundamentally do not factor into their analysis,” he said.
The OMB director added to Republicans’ growing criticism that CBO does not provide accurate financial projections.
“They’ve had just historically, undynamic assumptions with regard to tax policy,” Vought said. “The way that CBO operates is that they judge an expiration date to be something that causes it to look like a new cost to taxpayers.”
The CBO noted to FOX Business that its report released Wednesday does not include the macroeconomic effects of the legislation or a dynamic analysis.
Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom, Alexa Angelus and Eric Revell contributed to this report.
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