CBO Tells Merkley: “One Big, Beautiful Bill” Adds $4.5 Trillion to Debt if Temporary Tax Provisions Made Permanent

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As Senate Republicans continue to haggle over how to give billionaires the biggest tax break, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, that if the temporary tax provisions in the House-passed “One Big, Beautiful Bill” are instead made permanent, the debt will increase by $4.5 trillion over the next 10 years. Recently, CBO released analysis showing that the bill will add $3 trillion to the debt when including the $551 billion in increased interest on the national debt caused by the provisions in the bill that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans.

“Every analysis of this bill by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office continues to show the same result: this bill explodes the debt by trillions of dollars to fund tax breaks for billionaires,” said Ranking Member Jeff Merkley. “Republicans can’t spin the fact that this bill is bad policy that explodes the debt, kicks 16 million people off of their health insurance, and makes it hard for working families to put food on the table – all to ensure their billionaire buddies can benefit from generous tax giveaways. It is hypocritical coming from the party that claims to be fiscally responsible.”

Even as their party pretends that it is free to enact extensions of expiring tax giveaways, the Republican “One Big, Beautiful Bill” cynically ends well over a dozen new tax breaks after four or five years, both so Republicans can campaign on these provisions again when it comes time to extend them, and so they can artificially hold down the cost of their bill. Although Republicans are clear that they intend to make all their tax giveaways permanent, they engineered a lower cost estimate by pretending the new tax breaks will end. Sen. Merkley requested this new analysis to more accurately show the Republicans’ true intentions.

The new CBO analysis reflects the additional budgetary effects of extending through 2034 the 16 tax provisions of the Republican reconciliation bill that expire in 2028 or 2029. The Joint Committee on Taxation projects that extending these provisions, including four provisions that disproportionately benefit big businesses, would add $1.4 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, over and above the score of the House-passed bill, and another $136 billion in additional costs to finance the ballooning debt. If all these provisions are made permanent, CBO estimates that the debt-to-GDP ratio at the end of 2034 would be 128 percent.

To read the full report, click HERE.

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