Republicans keep claiming their megabill won’t add to the deficit. That’s plainly false.
During House Speaker Mike Johnson’s latest appearance on “Meet the Press,” the Louisiana Republican pushed a familiar claim about the inaptly named “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” His party’s reconciliation package, Johnson told NBC News’ Kristen Welker, is “not going to add to the debt.”
The “Meet the Press” host seemed prepared for such an answer. “Mr. Speaker, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Tax Foundation, the Penn Wharton Budget Model all say this will add trillions of dollars to the deficit,” Welker added. “Are you really telling the American people this will not add one penny to the debt and deficit? You can guarantee that?”
Congress’ top Republican again said, “I am telling you, this is going to reduce the deficit.”
The rhetoric was absurd, but familiar. A few days before Johnson’s “Meet the Press” interview, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, in reference to the GOP’s far-right legislation, “There will be no increase to the deficit.” It was a declaration she’s made several times before.
She has plenty of company. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House Budget Director Russ Vought, and a variety of Republican members in the House and Senate have all peddled the same talking point.
Broadly speaking, there are three foundational problems with this. The first is that the Republican claim is demonstrably silly. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that the GOP legislation would add $3.8 trillion to upcoming budget deficits, and a variety of other assessments have come to similar conclusions. The idea that the reconciliation package wouldn’t add a penny to the deficit, and would actually reduce the deficit, is absurd.
The second problem is that the lies about the bill’s fiscal impact aren’t persuading those who need to be convinced. Several Republican senators, including Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson and Kentucky’s Rand Paul, have said they’re not comfortable voting for legislation that would add trillions of dollars to the national debt, and the more GOP officials pretend that arithmetic has no meaning, the more these senators push back.
Finally, there’s the bond market to consider. The Washington Post reported over the weekend:
Wall Street bankers and executives are privately warning the Trump administration that the tax bill moving through Congress could stoke investor anxiety about rising deficits, push up U.S. borrowing costs and damage the broader economy, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the matter. … [R]ecently, a growing number of figures from the financial world have expressed private concerns that such an expensive bill could rattle the U.S. bond market, a cornerstone of the global financial system and the national economy.
The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have published related reports in recent days. Jared Bernstein, the former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, also wrote a terrific piece for MSNBC last week, explaining that investors “are worried that Trump and the GOP are acting in ways that will both lower growth and raise interest rates,” which is “a toxic combination.”
The solution for the White House and Republican congressional leaders is not to repeat the same lie, louder and more frequently. Rather, the solution is to get a calculator and do meaningful work on the GOP’s indefensible legislation.