The estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is all but certain to inflame an already intense debate inside the G.O.P. about the fiscal consequences of their bill to enact President Trump’s agenda.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that the broad Republican bill to cut taxes and slash some federal programs would add $2.4 trillion to the already soaring national debt over the next decade, in an analysis that was all but certain to inflame concerns that President Trump’s domestic agenda would lead to excessive government borrowing.
The C.B.O. analysis focused on the version of the bill that passed the House late last month, but the cost estimate could change as Republicans in the Senate begin to put their imprint on the legislation. G.O.P. lawmakers there want to deepen some of the bill’s tax cuts, while others are pressing to pare back some its cuts to Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor, and clean-energy tax incentives.
Conservatives and Wall Street investors had already expressed grave concerns that the measure would swell federal deficits, and some Senate Republicans have said they cannot back the legislation in its current form. That could derail the bill’s progress, given that the party can afford to lose no more than three votes in the Senate if all Democrats vote against it.
The legislation had long been expected to add significantly to the debt, given the enormous cost of extending the tax cuts that Republicans first put into place in 2017, the central pillar of the bill. Hard-right lawmakers demanded that the party use their total control of Washington to also slash spending and contain the cost of the legislation, but the C.B.O.’s estimate was a reminder that the party fell well short of covering the roughly $3.8 trillion cost of extending the tax cut.
In the House version of the bill, Republicans also turned to some well-worn gimmicks in a bid to lower the sticker price of the legislation. Several of the bill’s tax cut provisions, including Mr. Trump’s campaign pledges to not tax tips and overtime pay, would last for only a few years. Those cuts could become far more costly if they were continued.
In recent weeks, some analysts on Wall Street have started to voice their worry about the consequences of the legislation, given the nation’s already-precarious fiscal situation. Moody’s downgraded the credit rating of the United States last month, the last of the major rating firms to cast some doubt on the country’s ability to pay its bills.
To defend their legislation, some Republicans and White House aides have taken to attacking the C.B.O. as politically motivated and unreliable. But several nonpartisan independent groups that have analyzed the bill have also concluded that it would add significantly to the federal debt.