The bulk of that deficit increase comes from the megabill’s sweeping tax cuts, which would lead to DC taking in roughly $3.7 trillion fewer between 2025 and 2034.
Republicans attempted to mitigate the deficit impact by tacking on more than $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over a decade, but also increased defense and border spending by almost $300 billion.
The deficit refers to the gap between federal revenue and spending, essentially the amount of money being added to the national debt, which stands at almost $37 trillion.
Last month, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an outside nonprofit group, analyzed that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would add $2.5 trillion to the deficit over a 10-year period, but that impact would jump to $3.1 trillion when factoring in the impact on interest on the debt.
The CBO is expected to release its findings on the megabill’s debt service effects within the coming days.
The congressional scorekeeper had previously released rough estimates for key components of the mammoth bill.
Prior to the bill’s May 22 passage by the House, the CBO released a preliminary assessment relying on data from the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), concluding that the measure would reduce revenue by about $3.8 trillion over a 10-year period.
Republican leadership and the White House have argued that extending provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act shouldn’t count as an increase to the deficit because those provisions were always meant to be permanent — despite those measures being set to expire at the end of this year.
“The lefty CBO says extending the 2017 tax cuts (preventing their expiration) increases the deficit,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller argued on X. “Honestly accounted, extending current tax rates has zero deficit impact which is why the bill, because of its spending cuts, reduces the deficit.”
GOP leaders have also frequently griped about the CBO’s track record, pointing to how revenue exceeded estimates for the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (a big factor was pandemic-induced inflation).
“They have projected anemic economic growth,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.
“What’s going to happen here is exactly the opposite. We’re going to have historic growth because we’re basing this on the history of the recent past.”
The CBO’s release comes in the middle of a firestorm within the conservative movement over the deficit and debt implications of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“What’s going to happen here is exactly the opposite. We’re going to have historic growth because we’re basing this on the history of the recent past.”
On Tuesday, tech baron Elon Musk fumed that the megabill was a “disgusting abomination” that would turbocharge the deficit. Several Republican lawmakers, such as Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), have also suggested the debt implications of the package are a dealbreaker.
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