Latest news with #federaldebt
New York Times
an hour ago
- Business
- New York Times
How Hard Will Musk Fight Republicans' Budget Bill?
Can Musk kill the budget bill? Elon Musk hasn't stopped criticizing the budget bill that he has called a 'disgusting abomination.' In fact, he appears to be just getting started. The debate in Washington now is how far Musk will go to try to defeat a bill that — by the assessment of Musk, several Republicans and now nonpartisan watchdogs — will vastly add to the federal debt. 'KILL THE BILL,' Musk posted on X on Wednesday, a message he urged followers to press with members of Congress. He has turned a majority of his feed into a stream of reposts of content criticizing the legislation and denouncing its effect on the nation's $36 trillion debt load. A string of assessments suggest that the bill will add to the debt. The most consequential, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, estimated that the House version of the plan would add $2.4 trillion over the next decade, given both the roughly $3.8 trillion tax cut at its core and additional spending. (Other estimates are even higher, including the Penn Wharton Budget Model's: $2.8 trillion.) A Republican counter: Attack the messenger. The Trump administration advanced hard-to-believe claims about C.B.O. staff members' partisanship, and arguments that its analysis ignores projected economic growth. That said, a previous nonpartisan analysis of the House bill found that the tax cuts would generate nearly no additional economic growth, and even conservatives found the budget office's analysis credible. 'When all the models are in unison,' Erica York, the vice president for federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, told The Times, 'it really doesn't make sense to triple down on the strategy to blame the scorekeeper.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
21 hours ago
- Business
- New York Times
Republicans Try to Discredit Experts Warning About the Cost of Tax Cuts
Even before House Republicans learned the full price of their tax package on Wednesday, one of the bill's chief authors, Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, was sowing doubt about the accuracy of the estimate. 'I'm skeptical,' Mr. Smith said at an event last month when asked about the coming analysis of the legislation's cost. 'Unless I like the number, I'm against the number.' In the bitter war over the nation's fiscal future, President Trump and his Republican allies have united around a new foe: the economists and budget experts who have warned about the costs of the party's tax ambitions. Republican leaders have set about trying to discredit any hint of unfavorable accounting on their signature legislation as they race to enact it before the president's self-imposed July 4 deadline. The latest estimate arrived on Wednesday, projecting that the sprawling bill endorsed by Mr. Trump could add about $2.4 trillion to the federal debt over the next decade. By then, though, the package of tax, spending and welfare cuts had already ignited an intense wave of political attacks and recriminations. While Republicans scrambled to cast their proposal as fiscally responsible, Wall Street was getting the jitters about the nation's growing debt burden. The tech executive Elon Musk, having left behind his role seeking to slash government spending for Mr. Trump, savaged the bill on social media on Tuesday, saying it would 'massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit.' Most economists — from nonpartisan government watchdogs as well as outside tax analysts across the political spectrum — have concluded that the bill passed by House Republicans, which is now being considered by the Senate, could exacerbate the nation's fiscal imbalance while contributing less in economic growth than Mr. Trump forecasts. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CBS News
3 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Budget bill would add trillions to U.S. debt and increase inequality, Nobel laureate economists say
Trump "one, big beautiful bill" holdout Sen. Rand Paul says "the math doesn't really add up" Six Nobel laureate economists said a massive budget bill passed by House lawmakers last month and backed by President Trump would weaken key safety-net programs while greatly lifting the federal debt. The tax and spending package, which Republicans have dubbed the "one big beautiful bill," would hurt millions of Americans by slashing Medicaid and food stamps, the economists wrote in a June 2 letter on behalf of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. "Even with the safety net cuts, the House bill leads to public debt rising by over $3 trillion in coming years (and over $5 trillion over the next decade if provisions are made permanent rather than phasing out)," the economists state. "The higher debt and deficits will put noticeable upward pressure on both inflation and interest rates in coming years." The authors of the letter are Daron Acemoglu, Peter Diamond and Simon Johnson of MIT; Oliver Hart of Harvard University; Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University; and Paul Krugman of City University of New York. Including interest, the House bill would boost the nation's debt by $3.1 trillion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an advocacy group focused on fiscal policy. The nation's rising deficit — the gap between annual government spending and revenue — and growing federal debt have sounded alarms on Wall Street, roiling financial markets and raising questions about the country's long-term financial stability. The Trump administration describes the budget package as a "once-in-a-generation opportunity" to cut government spending and drive economic growth. Senate hurdles The Senate is expected to take up the bill this week, and its fate is uncertain amid strong opposition from Democrats and concerns by some Republicans. "One of the things this 'big and beautiful bill' is, is, it's a vehicle for increasing spending for the military and for the border," Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, said Sunday on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan." Paul is among a small group of Senate Republicans who have expressed opposition to the bill. "It's about $320 billion in new spending. To put that in perspective, that's more than all the DOGE cuts that we have found so far," he added, referring to reductions in government spending advanced by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. "So, the increase in spending put into this bill exceeds the DOGE cuts." Raising inequality? The six economists who penned the letter criticizing the Republican bill also said that large tax cuts under the legislation, combined with the hits to Medicaid and food stamps, would increase inequality. "The combination of cuts to key safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP and tax cuts disproportionately benefiting higher-income households means that the House budget constitutes an extremely large upward redistribution of income," they said. Mr. Trump has said the proposed tax cuts, which would extend reductions passed under his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, would boost workers and incentivize investment in domestic manufacturing. The White House Council of Economic Advisers claims that the Trump administration's policies, which include steep import tariffs on major U.S. trading partners, will supercharge growth and shrink the deficit. contributed to this report.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Johnson warns Senators about making changes to Trump's tax and spending cuts bill: ‘It's best not to meddle with it too much'
Jake Tapper grills Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson on how the GOP's tax and spending cuts bill adds to federal debt. Plus, hear the Speaker's thoughts on the President's lavish dinner for top investors in his personal cryptocurrency.
CNN
25-05-2025
- Business
- CNN
Johnson warns Senators about making changes to Trump's tax and spending cuts bill: ‘It's best not to meddle with it too much'
Jake Tapper grills Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson on how the GOP's tax and spending cuts bill adds to federal debt. Plus, hear the Speaker's thoughts on the President's lavish dinner for top investors in his personal cryptocurrency.
