Latest news with #House-passed
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's Disastrous Budget Bill Is Even More Expensive Than We Thought
Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' would increase the total U.S. deficit by nearly $2.8 trillion over the next decade, according to a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office. Previous estimates suggested that the massive spending bill would add $2.4 trillion to the national deficit over the next 10 years, but a 'dynamic' estimate published Tuesday takes into account how the legislation would affect the U.S. economy—and things got even more dire. The CBO projected that an increase in economic output would decrease the primary deficit by $85 billion over the 2025–2034 period, while also significantly boosting interest rates, which would push the federal debt to a whopping $441 billion. 'Incredible—CBO says the House-passed GOP bill pays for only 3.5% of itself,' Bobby Kogan, the senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, wrote on X Tuesday. Despite previous damning reports, MAGA Republicans backing the bill have continued to claim that the CBO is biased, rather than make any concessions, and have claimed that the CBO's evaluations of the legislation's cost don't take the revenue from Trump's sweeping global tariffs into effect. In a letter to Democratic lawmakers earlier this month, the CBO projected that Trump's tariffs, as they were in mid-May, could decrease the deficit by $2.8 trillion—but said any projection came with some uncertainty, as Trump's tariffs are ever-vacillating. The newest analysis suggests that the costs will only go up after taking the economy into account. The CBO estimated that over the next decade, the legislation would affect the economy by increasing gross domestic product by an average of 0.5 percent, increasing the interest rates on 10-year Treasury notes by 14 basis points, and increasing inflation 'by a small amount' through 2030, but not afterward.
The Hill
11 hours ago
- Business
- The Hill
Reconciliation and rescissions roil Congress
The threat of being kept after school if you hadn't completed your homework was a motivator back in my high school days. Apparently, it doesn't work on adults in Congress. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) threatened to keep the upper body in session on Juneteenth and through the weekend if necessary to complete action on President Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act,' also known as the fiscal 2025 reconciliation bill. Senate Republicans emerged from their conference on Monday evening after being briefed on what changes the Finance Committee had made in the House-passed bill. They seemed just as divided as they were when they went into the meeting, primarily over cuts in Medicaid benefits, tax cut issues, and various smaller items tucked away in the 1,000 plus page measure (little jagged gems are still being discovered by close readers). The prospect of missing an extended weekend back home was not sufficient to spur immediate action. The larger issue looming over both the House-passed and Senate-tweaked bills is whether they provide steep enough cuts to make a real difference in the deficit. Disgruntled House Republicans are outraged that the bill, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, would actually increase the deficit over the next decade rather that reduce it. The president's Office of Management and Budget disagrees with that assessment and scores the measure overall as a deficit reducer. The battle of the scorekeepers rages on with predictable arguments being made by both sides. Reconciliation is an obscure term plucked by the drafters of the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act to accomplish a very simple objective, at least on paper. The two houses adopt a budget resolution for the coming fiscal year. It is a concurrent resolution on the budget with no force or effect in law — an aspirational goal of Congress on what it wants the federal government's fiscal status to look like. The congressional budget does have real consequences, though, once that framework is fleshed out. The regular appropriations process complies with the budget through caps on discretionary spending. In addition, reconciliation instructions to authorizing committees may direct changes in existing laws to either increase or reduce the amount of spending needed to achieve the budget resolution's goals, so-called mandatory spending, mainly in taxes and entitlements. And therein lies the rub, since a handful of members in both chambers have strong objections to particular items in the House-passed bill. The original aim was to complete action on reconciliation by the July Fourth recess, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) thinks that deadline will now slip to later in the month. The fourth leg of the budgetary process is rescission. In the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Control Act, rescissions became the impoundment tool of presidents. If the president wants to withhold or cancel appropriations that have been enacted, he must submit a rescission request to Congress. If it approves the request within 45 days, the spending is cancelled. If not, the spending goes forward. President Trump, on May 30, submitted a $9.4 billion rescission request to the Hill. The House passed the rescission bill narrowly last week. The Senate will take it up after it completes action on reconciliation. In his first term, Trump proposed $15 billion in rescissions. The Senate rejected the entire package. The Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, has just released a report finding the Trump administration has violated the law by rescinding funds for The Institute of Museums and Library Services without seeking the approval of Congress. Earlier this year, the agency made the same finding about the administration's cancellation of the $5 billion program for electric vehicle charging stations, again without seeking Congress's go-ahead. The Government Accountability Office indicated earlier this year that it is inquiring into over three dozen unilateral funding cuts by the administration, most of which originated with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE. There are those in the administration who do not think rescission bills are necessary because, they argue, the president already has unilateral authority to withhold funding as he sees fit without congressional approval. Moreover, they think the entire budget act is unconstitutional. This underlying dispute ultimately will be resolved by the Supreme Court. Until then, the administration is considering whether and how to complete its homework assignment by trying to put as many DOGE cuts as it can on the right side of the law with additional rescission requests. And Congress should ensure it completes its fiscal 2025 budget process assignment before time runs out on Sept. 30. Don Wolfensberger is a 28-year congressional staff veteran culminating as chief-of-staff of the House Rules Committee in 1995. He is author of, 'Congress and the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial' (2000), and, 'Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays' (2018).
New York Post
a day ago
- Health
- New York Post
How Trump's ‘big, beautiful' bill targets transgender medical procedures nationally
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Tennessee's ban on transgender medical procedures for minors — a controversial practice that could be outlawed nationally if President Trump's 'big, beautiful' bill clears the Senate intact. The House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes a provision barring the use of taxpayer money to fund so-called 'gender-affirming care,' for both children and adults. The provision, championed by Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), would ban Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIPs) and Affordable Care Act (ACA) funds from being spent on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and irreversible surgeries, such as double masectomies and genital reconstruction. The so-called 'Crenshaw Amendment' — a last-minute addition to the massive piece of legislation — specifically amends the Social Security Act, halting federal payments for what the provision deems as medically unnecessary procedures. 3 Crenshaw's provision will save taxpayers $2.5 billions over the next 10 years, according to his office. REUTERS The provision will have to survive the Senate's strict rules governing the reconciliation process, specifically the Byrd Rule, to make it into the upper chamber's version of the legislation. The Byrd Rule prevents the inclusion of measures deemed 'extraneous' to the budget process. For instance, provisions that don't directly affect spending or revenue. The Byrd Rule is interpreted and enforced by the Senate parliamentarian. Crenshaw's office notes that taxpayers will save 'about $2.5 billion over 10 years' if the provision becomes law. 'That's the estimated savings from blocking federal funding — via Medicaid, CHIP, and ACA — for gender transition procedures,' the congressman's office states. 'With transition costs running up to $75,000 per patient, the numbers add up fast. This amendment cuts it off—saving money and saving lives.' Last month, Crenshaw vowed that his provision 'will become law,' arguing that it is 'long overdue.' 'Gender transition procedures are the lobotomy of our generation,' he said in a statement. 'So-called 'gender-affirming care' isn't healthcare — it's fringe science with no proven benefit and massive risks.' 3 The transgender surgery ban would codify and expand on President Trump's executive actions preventing federal agencies from using tax dollars to promote or fund gender transitions. AP 3 The Supreme Court upheld Tennessee's transgender surgery ban on Wednesday in a 6-3 ruling. REUTERS In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court found that Tennessee's ban on transgender puberty blockers and hormone therapy treatments for minors does not violate the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. More than half of US states have similar laws on the books. 'Today was not just a win for basic biology and common sense, but for human decency, sound medicine, and the dignity and safety of children everywhere,' Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) said of the high court's ruling. 'As a doctor for over 25 years, I understand the gravity of these harmful so-called treatments radical activists have been pushing on children. They leave permanent scarring, sterilization, and other horrible side effects,' he added. 'Make no mistake, there's more work to do, and I remain committed to eliminating taxpayer-funded transgender procedures on both minors and adults.' Marshall's No Subsidies for Gender Transition Procedures Act is the Senate's companion legislation to Crenshaw's measure in the House.
Politico
a day ago
- Business
- Politico
Megabill debt warnings fall on deaf ears inside the GOP
Senate Republicans are fielding mounting warnings from economists that their signature legislation would add trillions of dollars to the deficit. It appears to be the last thing on their minds. As Senate Majority Leader John Thune prepares to jam through the GOP's sprawling border, energy and tax package to President Donald Trump's desk, fellow Republicans are largely ignoring a host of reports warning that their bill would worsen the nation's fiscal trajectory in a serious way. They're instead relying on estimates from the White House that assume vastly greater economic growth than virtually every other economic model — while trashing the credibility of Congress' nonpartisan budget scorer, the Congressional Budget Office, which said on Tuesday that the House-passed border, energy and tax bill would add around $2.8 trillion to the deficit over a decade. 'It's a model. And obviously, they've been famously wrong before,' said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) of the latest CBO report. 'We do have more debt now than we had before, for sure, but I think they grossly underestimate the economic benefits.' The problem highlighted by CBO and other economists is this: While the GOP's tax cuts may provide some economic growth, they will likely not juice the economy as much as when Republicans first enacted Trump's tax cuts in 2017. On the flip side, with federal debt closing in on $37 trillion, the rising costs of servicing more expensive interest payments will far outweigh any additional revenue that is generated from increased economic growth. 'The economic and fiscal state is not what it was in 2017,' said Paul Winfree, president and CEO of the Economic Policy Innovation Center, who was previously a top economic official in the first Trump administration. Winfree added in a text message that 'the stock of debt is so large that anything we do to modestly increase productivity (and growth) without reducing spending … will lead to higher costs.' That was underscored Tuesday when CBO put a number this week to the warning economists have been making for months: that the GOP package would hike interest rates and in turn increase borrowing costs. Higher interest rates would boost payments on the national debt by an estimated $440 billion over a decade, CBO predicted, while the megabill would drive yearly economic growth of just 0.5 percent on average during that time. House Republican leaders are claiming the bill would generate $2.5 trillion by banking on total average growth of 2.6 percent. That finding prompted an unusual phenomenon. Usually tax-cutting bills tend to cost less under so-called 'dynamic' scores that include economic effects. Not so here: The $2.8 trillion figure released Tuesday outstripped the CBO's prior $2.4 trillion estimate that did not include economic analysis — mostly attributable to the fact that, in their words, the bill 'would increase interest rates.' Lack of recognition of the dynamic has upset at least one Republican, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who dropped his own report Wednesday illustrating that the GOP's megabill has little shot of bending the deficit trajectory downward, even in the rosiest of economic circumstances. Johnson, who said he will vote against the massive tax and spending package as it's currently written, is challenging his colleagues in the Senate and in the administration to show him where he's wrong. 'The whole point of laying out the report was to get everyone to acknowledge and admit reality,' Johnson told reporters. 'Nobody's pushed back on my numbers. Here's an opportunity to do it. … I've shown people my work. Who else has shown people work?' But Thune took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to argue that the party-line megabill would generate enough revenue — around $4.1 trillion — through economic growth to completely make up for the deficit impact from the reduced revenue, citing a report from the White House's Council for Economic Advisors that asserts the bill would lead to long-run GDP growth of up to 3.5 percent. Thune added that CBO 'characteristically, I should say, underestimates the economic growth, and hence the revenue, that this bill would provide.' The White House figures are outliers compared with other economic models. The conservative-leaning Tax Foundation found, for instance, that the GOP's plan would boost economic growth by 0.8 percent in the long-run but still, on a dynamic basis and after $1.5 trillion in net spending cuts, add $1.7 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates that the bill would spur economic growth of 0.4 percent over 10 years and add $3.2 trillion to the deficit over a decade, all things considered. Kyle Pomerleau of the American Enterprise Institute called the White House estimates 'outrageous' and 'way higher than everyone else's.' He said the in-house analysis takes into account tax incentives, like those for domestic manufacturing, that didn't end up in the bill that passed the House in May. 'They just say that, 'well, the individual income tax — that's going to make people work more and that's it,'' he said. 'But it misses so many different details of the actual reform itself.' Democrats say voters will notice if the GOP package becomes a drag on the economy rather than the boon Republicans are marketing. Reiterating a claim party leaders often voice, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said the 2017 tax bill 'ended up being a stone' around Republicans' neck 'that helped lead to their bloodletting' in the 2018 midterms. 'At some point they have to look at all this new information and decide to stop and go back to the drawing board,' Murphy said in a brief interview. 'Because what they're designing is not going to help our economy and is going to hurt a ton of people.' The release of the CBO report comes as Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) fields requests from several of his GOP colleagues to scale back changes to taxes that fund Medicaid and cuts to green energy credits. Crapo has been also pushing to use an accounting maneuver known as a current policy baseline, which would effectively zero out the cost of around $3.8 trillion in tax cut extensions. It would allow Senate Republicans to make Trump's tax cuts permanent without having to offset much of their deficit impact, which would otherwise be required by the Senate's budget rules. Asked for his reaction to the new CBO report, Crapo said he has 'the same reaction I've always had' to the official scorekeeper's numbers: 'They're not using the right baseline, and they aren't analyzing it dynamically.' Jordain Carney, Jennifer Scholtes and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
New R.I. Senate leaders push revised ban on assault-style weapons to Senate floor
New Senate President Valarie J. Lawson, who also leads the National Education Association Rhode Island, and new Senate Majority Leader Frank A. Ciccone III, a licensed gun dealer, used their power to vote in any committee, and backed the bill. Get Rhode Map A weekday briefing from veteran Rhode Island reporters, focused on the things that matter most in the Ocean State. Enter Email Sign Up Senate Minority Leader Jessica de la Cruz, a North Smithfield Republican, and Minority Whip Gordon E. Rogers, a Foster Republican, also used their ex officio powers, voting against the bill. Advertisement The 10-member Judiciary Committee had been seen as evenly split on the issue. But Senator John P. Burke, a West Warwick Democrat , voted for the bill, defying expectations. The revised gun bill has drawn support from Everytown for Gun Safety leaders, who have said, 'Compromise is a part of public policy progress, and the amended version of this bill is still a massive step forward.' But it has drawn criticism from the Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence, which issued a statement Wednesday and said it remains 'deeply disappointed' in the 'weakened' ban on assault-style weapons and favors the House-passed bill. Advertisement Senator Dawn Euer, a Newport Democrat, voted for the bill in the Judiciary Committee, and said she has prepared floor amendments that would restore the bill to the House-passed version. The vote had been seen as a test for both Lawson and Ciccone, who has opposed prior gun bills and has said he sells a small numbers to friends and family. On May 20, the state Ciccone, a Providence Democrat, is one of 99 federal firearms license holders in Rhode Island who would be affected by a proposed ban on assault-style weapons. The Ethics Commission voted 8 to 1 for an advisory opinion that says Ciccone falls under the ethics code's 'class exception,' which says public officials don't have a conflict of interest if legislation would not help or hurt them any more than any other member of a business, profession, or group. Senator Leonidas P. Raptakis, a Coventry Democrat, voted against the bill in committee, saying, 'I need to emphasize my disgust that we are once again abridging our Second Amendment rights for all Rhode Islanders. No form of firearms ban is acceptable under the guise of making us safer.' Raptakis predicted the residents will be less safe 'because law-abiding citizens will not be able to buy weapons to defend themselves next year.' The Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence, which emphasized that it's the only Rhode Island-based gun control advocacy group, asked advocates to ask senators to support the version of the bill passed by the House. Advertisement 'Our No. 1 goal is to keep Rhode Islanders as safe as possible from preventable gun violence,' coalition Executive Director Melissa Carden said in a statement. And she said the House-passed bill was the 'result of years of collaboration of gun safety advocates and legislators getting to the best bill possible.' 'At a time when the federal government is rolling back gun safety measures across the board, the states need to do all they can to make sure our communities and families are safe,' Carden said. She noted that Attorney General Peter F. Neronha had backed the House-passed bill and said he would defend it in court. On Bluesky, Providence resident Suzanne Ellis Wernevi asked Neronha to weigh in on the revised gun bill. Neronha replied, 'It's an approach followed by some states like Washington. We haven't looked at it carefully. I support the version passed by the House, which we studied carefully and participated in the drafting of, and which best preserves public safety.' House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi, a Warwick Democrat, issued a statement, and said, 'I am withholding comment until the entire Senate considers the bill. The final bill is subject to change on the Senate floor, so it would be premature to comment at this time.' Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at
