Republicans Have a Solution for Their Deficit Problem: Flagrant Lies

[justaprogressive]

ugly pic of Stephen Miller

If there is one thing that threatens the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, it’s the fact that it blows up the budget deficit. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), it will increase borrowing by a total of $2.4 trillion by 2034, because the $1.3 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs do not come close to canceling out $3.7 trillion in tax cuts for the rich. Just the tax cuts going to the richest 5 percent outstrip the cuts to Medicaid and food stamps by $300 billion. And if you add in interest costs, the total debt the bill rings up is more like $3 trillion.

A loud faction of Republican “deficit hawks” are reportedly unhappy with this, not so much because of the tax cuts, but because the welfare and food aid cuts are not savage enough. But a smaller faction of Senate Republicans—perhaps scenting danger if they vote to throw millions of their own constituents off their health insurance—are wavering on the existing Medicaid cuts.


What to do? The Trump administration has come up with a solution: outrageous, bald-faced lying, with talking points delivered through Fox News. Just claim that the bill will decrease the deficit with a blizzard of preposterous nonsense, and hope that will give congressional Republicans enough of an excuse to vote it through.

One argument here is a straightforward falsehood. Republicans claim that the “mandatory savings” in the bill will cut $1.7 trillion, but as noted above, the Congressional Budget Office found only $1.3 trillion. (What’s a cheeky $400 billion between friends?)


Another argument is tendentious metaphysics. Top White House aid Stephen Miller argued on Fox Business that “Extending and making permanent the 2017 tax cuts does not and cannot add to the deficit.” Hey presto, that $3.7 trillion in new borrowing disappears!

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-06-12-republicans-beautiful-bill-deficit-medicaid/

[Celerity]

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