Republican Senate tax bill would add $3.3 trillion to the US debt load, CBO says

Senate Majority Leader John Thune R-S D joined at left by Sen John Barrasso R-Wyo the GOP whip speaks to reporters following closed-door party meetings at the Capitol in Washington Tuesday June AP Photo J Scott Applewhite AP J Scott Applewhite Senate Majority Leader John Thune R-S D joined at left by Sen John Barrasso R-Wyo the GOP whip speaks to reporters following closed-door party meetings at the Capitol in Washington Tuesday June AP Photo J Scott Applewhite AP J Scott Applewhite WASHINGTON AP The changes made to President Donald Trump s big tax bill in the Senate would pile trillions onto the nation s debt load while resulting in even steeper losses in soundness care coverage the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office mentioned in a new analysis adding to the challenges for Republicans as they try to muscle the bill to passage The CBO estimates the Senate bill would increase the deficit by nearly trillion from to a nearly trillion increase over the House-passed bill which CBO has projected would add to the debt over a decade The analysis also exposed that million more Americans would become uninsured by if the bill became law an increase over the scoring for the House-passed version of the bill which predicts million more people would be without medical coverage The stark numbers are yet another obstacle for Republican leaders as they labor to pass Trump s bill by his self-imposed July th deadline Even before the CBO s estimate Republicans were at odds over the contours of the act with several resisting the cost-saving proposals to reduce spending on Medicaid and food aid programs even as other Republicans say those proposals don t go far enough Republicans are slashing the programs as a way to help cover the cost of extending chosen trillion in Trump tax breaks put in place during his first term The push-pull was on vivid display Saturday night as a routine procedural vote to take up the regulation in the Senate was held open for hours as Vice President JD Vance and Republican leaders met with several holdouts The bill ultimately advanced in a - vote but the path ahead is fraught with voting on amendments still to come Still multiple Republicans are disputing the CBO estimates and the reliability of the office s work To hoist the bill to passage they are using a different budget baseline that assumes the Trump tax cuts expiring in December have already been extended essentially making them cost-free in the budget The CBO on Saturday disclosed a separate analysis of the GOP s preferred approach that located the Senate bill would reduce deficits by about billion Democrats and economists decry the GOP s approach as magic math that obscures the true costs of the GOP tax breaks In addition Democrats note that under the traditional scoring system the Republican bill bill would violate the Senate s Byrd Rule that forbids the act from increasing deficits after years In a Sunday letter to Oregon Sen Jeff Merkley the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee CBO Director Phillip Swagel revealed the office estimates that the Finance Committee s portion of the bill also known as Title VII increases the deficits in years after under traditional scoring Source