President Donald J. Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” would add $2.4 trillion to the nation’s deficit over roughly the next decade, a new cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released today shows. The agency estimated the proposed tax cuts in the plan — which seek to lock in expiring provisions in President Trump’s signature 2017 tax law, along with a host of other add-ons — would decrease revenues by more than $3.6 trillion over that time frame. At the same time, the CBO estimated accompanying measures to cut federal spending, including reforms to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), would reduce outlays by $1.2 trillion over the same time frame.
The CBO data comes as the Senate is forging ahead this week on President Trump’s “one big beautiful bill,” facing a tight, self-imposed deadline to get the legislation to his desk ahead of the July 4th holiday and congressional recess. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) can only afford to lose three Republican votes on the bill, with all Democrats expected to vote against it. A handful of Senate Republicans have already expressed opposition to the House-passed bill and GOP leaders will be focused on uniting the conference around the bill, and possible changes, in the days ahead. Senate committees are expected to fully release revised text of the bill by the end of next week with panel markups where that text might be debated and potentially amended may or may not happen with the process of tweaking the bill largely happening behind closed doors in the coming weeks. Leader Thune said it will be up to each Senate committee to decide whether to hold votes on their piece of the bill and no panel has yet announced it will do so. After the Senate Finance panel — which has jurisdiction over both the tax and Medicare provisions — releases its text sometime next week, Senate Republicans will “fine tune” the bill during the third week of the month to ensure it can get 51 votes — possibly including a tie-breaker from Vice President JD Vance.
For today, the Senate is expected to take up a Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #144, James O’Neill, of California, to be Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services as well as Confirmation of Executive Calendar #119, Michelle Bowman, of Kansas, to be Vice Chairman for Supervision of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and Confirmation of Executive Calendar #129, Edward Walsh, of New Jersey, to be Ambassador to Ireland.
The House is in session and voting on legislation fighting the opioid crisis at 1:30 P.M. and 4:30 P.M.
