The Budget Bill Is Built to Hassle the Poor and Grow the Debt
The tax and spending legislation as it currently stands delivers no deficit reduction and adds huge burdens on aid recipients.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is blowing an opportunity.
Photographer: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
In the 2024 fiscal year, which ended last September, the US federal deficit was 6.4% of gross domestic product — a size unprecedented except in wartime or other significant crisis. If the tax and spending bill currently being worked on by House Republicans is enacted more or less as is, the deficit a decade from now will, according to the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, be … 6.8% of GDP.
There are lots of uncertainties here. The bill keeps changing. The CBO projections — which I’ve assembled for the tax bill by adding together the revenue and outlay estimates for each House committee that’s working on the bill, because the CBO hasn’t published an overall estimate yet — could turn out to be way off. President Donald Trump’s tariffs will bring in some revenue not accounted for here, although it’s really hard to predict how much because the rates keep changing and the tariff wars Trump has unleashed may depress economic growth.