CBO Finds Big Beautiful Bill Raises US Deficit By $2.4 Trillion, Saddles Next President With Fiscal Drag

Update (1238ET): White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has hit back over the Congressional Budget Office’s scoring of the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ – writing on X:

OMB just reviewed the new CBO score of the One Big Beautiful bill. It confirms what we knew about the bill at House passage. The bill REDUCES deficits by $1.4 trillion over ten years when you adjust for CBO’s one big gimmick–not using a realistic current policy baseline. It includes $1.7 trillion in mandatory savings, the most in history. If you care about deficits and debt, this bill dramatically improves the fiscal picture.

*  *  *

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is out with its official scoring of the Big Beautiful Bill in its current form – and it’s ugly (keep in mind that the White House just called out the CBO a ‘partisan and political’ institution stacked with Democrats). 

For starters, the bill would boost total projected deficits from $1.7 trillion to $2.3 trillion over 10 years, and would nearly double the primary (non-interest) deficit – largely attributed to a $3.8 trillion drop in tax revenue. 

CBO out with its score of the Big, Beautiful, Budget-Buster: sees it raising US deficit by $2.4 trillion over 10 years, almost identical to what CRFB said ($2.3 trillion). This is mostly due to $3.7TN in lower tax revenues, offset by $1.25TN in lower spending pic.twitter.com/4OoxaBJjEH

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 4, 2025

And as a reminder, Goldman points out that the Big Beautiful Bill has tax cuts front-loaded, spending cuts back-loaded (after 2029), so the next president is stuck with the fiscal drag.

According to Bloomberg, the CBO report indicates that 10.9 million people could be left without health insurance in 2034, including 1.4 million without verified citizenship, nationality or satisfactory immigration status who would lose coverage from state-only funded programs.

The CBO’s estimate comes one day after billionaire Elon Musk slammed the bill as a “disgusting abomination” that makes no effort to codify any federal savings found by DOGE, and continues America’s addition to spending. Musk’s pushback was met with key support by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who’s vowed to vote ‘no’ on the bill in its current form. Rep. Thomas Massie, one of two House Republicans to vote ‘no’ on the bill which barely passed the House, also supported Musk. 

I agree with Elon. We have both seen the massive waste in government spending and we know another $5 trillion in debt is a huge mistake.

We can and must do better. https://t.co/LwPNJZv5zo

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) June 3, 2025

Partisan CBO?

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed the CBO was “partisan and political,” telling reporters: “There hasn’t been a single staffer in the entire Congressional Budget Office that has contributed to a Republican since the year 2000. But guess what? There have been many staffers within the Congressional Budget Office who have contributed to Democrat candidates and politicians every single cycle.” 

“So unfortunately, this is another institution in our country that has become partisan and political, and we are very confident in our own economic analysis of this bill,” Leavitt continued. 

Collins points out GOP complaints about the deficit, and Leavitt says the White House says they’re wrong — then brags no CBO staffer has donated to Republicans since 2000.

Because math and facts are overrated when you can just flex donation records. pic.twitter.com/RTAM9kICbm

— The Vivlia (@TVivlia) June 4, 2025

Heritage Foundation senior fellow Stephen Moore noted in the Daily Caller that the “CBO Almost Always Gets it Wrong” – writing in the Daily Caller:

The CBO does not measure the economy-wide benefits of lower tax rates and thus it doesn’t adjust for higher employment and growth – which happens every time we cut tax rates.

We also know that the 2017 scoring of the Trump Tax Cut has already underestimated the revenues from the first six years of the law by a massive $1 trillion or more.

Last week, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that “The Democrat inspired and ‘controlled’ Congressional Budget Office (CBO) purposefully gave us an EXTREMELY LOW level of Growth, 1.8% over 10 years. How ridiculous and unpatriotic is that! They did the same thing to us in 2017, and we DOUBLED their numbers.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson also slammed the CBO, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “they always underestimate the growth that will be brought about by tax cuts and reduction in regulations.”

Johnson has obviously been preparing for the CBO report – posting this clip of himself on Fox News last week, and slamming the CBO for its ‘historically low growth rate of 1.8%.” 

The CBO is notorious for getting things WRONG. So, what does it get wrong about the One Big Beautiful Bill? A lot.

It assumes a historically low growth rate of just 1.8%.

But POTUS’s bill will be jet fuel for America’s economy. He delivered the best economy in the world… pic.twitter.com/fl3e2AC0H8

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) May 25, 2025