The Congressional Budget Office–liberal, but always prefaced by “nonpartisan” in press accounts–released a report today on the estimated budget impacts of the “big beautiful” bill that is now being considered in the Senate. The report is actually just a spreadsheet that sets out estimated budget impacts on a title-by-title basis, from 2025 through 2034.
Democratic Party newspapers have gleefully hailed the results. The New York Times headlined: “Trump’s Policy Bill Could Add $2.4 Trillion to Debt, Analysis Shows.”
The analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was all but certain to inflame concerns that President Trump’s domestic agenda would lead to excessive government borrowing.
In a separate article, the Times told us that “[s]ome Republicans have regrets after passing Trump’s domestic policy bill.”
[N]ow, Republicans who rallied behind the bill are claiming buyer’s remorse about measures they swear they did not know were included.
What? House members voted for a 1,000+ page long bill without understanding all of what it said? They needed to pass it to find out what was in it? Imagine that.
It is touching to see Democratic Party journalists so concerned with federal deficits and the national debt. Of course, what they don’t tell you is that the large majority of the budget impact over the next ten years comes from extending the tax cuts in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Those provisions otherwise would expire at the end of this year. So the alleged $2.4 trillion impact is not compared to what we are now taking in and spending, it is compared to a hypothetical world where on January 1 we would have the largest tax increase in American history. Which, in turn, would have devastating consequences for American families and for our economy.
It is noteworthy that no budget ever proposed by the Biden administration ever included a repeal of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act such as would occur, without Congressional action, on January 1.
It is also notable that concern about deficits by The New York Times and similar left-wing journals is highly selective. This simple chart shows federal budget deficits from 2000 through 2024:
With the exception of the two covid budgets, which were a bipartisan disaster, the six highest budget deficits in American history came under presidents Obama and Biden. Do you recall the Times wringing its hands over such fiscal irresponsibility? I don’t. Did the Times go hunting for Democratic Congressmen who would say they had no idea what was in the bills they voted for, and now regretted their votes to balloon the deficit? Just kidding.
So spare us the faux green eyeshade shtick.
