Deep In a Fiscal Hole, Congress Just Keeps Digging
Tweaks can’t solve the country’s debt problem. At some point, Washington will have to start over.
The outlook dims.
Photographer: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg
In a remarkable achievement, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act got worse with each iteration before finally being enacted last week. On plausible assumptions, the final version will add more than $5 trillion to deficits over the next 10 years, moving the track of public debt from unsustainable to all but unhinged. As Congress turns to its budget for next year, it must grapple realistically with this looming crisis.
As written, the measure will add about $3 trillion to the expected 10-year deficit. Include interest payments, and the cost rises to nearly $4 trillion. Assume that assorted “temporary” measures are made permanent — which seems reasonable, given that most of the bill’s cost comes from extending supposedly temporary tax cuts passed in 2017 — and the total could be as much as $6 trillion. Federal debt held by the public would climb from 100% of gross domestic product today to 130% by 2034. (After that, it just keeps going up.)