One of the key questions about the Republicans’ domestic policy megabill — the inaptly named One Big Beautiful Bill Act — is how much the far-right package would cost. Republican Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, recently told The Washington Post, “You have some that say it’s going to save trillions. And then you have others that say it’s going to add trillions.”
Well, yes, that about covers it.
But for those willing to disregard partisan rhetoric and posturing, Congress has a whole office that answers questions like these in an objective and nonpartisan way. It’s called the Congressional Budget Office, and this week it provided lawmakers with revised information about the overall cost of the GOP’s reconciliation bill. The New York Times reported:
House Republicans’ sprawling package to cut taxes and slash federal safety-net programs would add about $3.4 trillion to the debt, according to nonpartisan congressional analysts, who reported on Tuesday that the minor gains in economic growth under the bill would not offset its full fiscal impact. The updated findings from the Congressional Budget Office amounted to yet another dour report card for the president’s signature legislation, which passed the House last month but now faces the prospect of significant revisions to its core components in the Senate.
At this point, I know what some readers are thinking. “Hold on,” you’re saying. “Didn’t you just publish a post two weeks ago that said the Republican legislation would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt? Is the actual number $2.4 trillion or $3.4 trillion?”
If that is what you’re thinking, it’s a good question — but I have a good answer.
The CBO score from two weeks ago simply did the arithmetic based on the provisions included in the House-approved version of the bill, adding up spending and revenue. This new and revised CBO score, as the Times put it, “sought to project the ways the bill would interact with federal spending and the U.S. economy.” (This is generally known as a “dynamic” budget analysis.)
With this in mind, this latest report from the budget office didn’t just include the surface-level budget shortfalls that that Republican bill would generate, it also included, among other things, the increased interest costs on the national debt. This is what pushed the overall cost to $3.4 trillion.
“Today’s CBO score will disappoint every Republican who hoped tax breaks for billionaires would magically pay for themselves,” Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat and the ranking member on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement. He added, “Their handouts to the mega-rich will add trillions to the national debt. As if kicking 16 million people off their health care wasn’t bad enough, now every American will pay the price for the Republican debt crisis — with higher interest rates, bigger credit card bills, and more expensive mortgages.”
The more Republican leaders insist that their legislation would shrink the deficit, the more arithmetic points in the opposite direction.
