White House economists on Wednesday released a report asserting that the tax and domestic policy bill being debated by the Senate would improve the economy by reducing the national debt.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers found in its report that the wide-ranging budget reconciliation bill, which passed the House last month but has yet to have a vote in the Senate, would reduce the deficit by $8.5 trillion over the next 10 years, bringing it down to $11.1 trillion. It would also expand the economy by 0.3% and would boost corporate investment by almost 3%, after inflation is taken into account.
The CEA also found that the bill would lower the nation's debt-to-gross domestic product ratio from 98% to 94% over the next 10 years, a sharp contrast from the Congressional Budget Office, which estimates the legislation would increase that ratio to over 115%.
"The CBO score isn't intended to be an overall, holistic view of where the deficit is going," Council of Economic Advisers Chair Stephen Miran told reporters on Wednesday morning.
"It doesn't include things like tariff revenue, it doesn't include things like discretionary spending reductions, it doesn't include things like the much bigger economic growth we'll have," he added.
Economists cast doubt on the council's findings, however. Kent Smetters, director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, told Axios: "With this report, the CEA claims that these tax cuts will not only pay for themselves, the tax cuts will also pay down the growing debt that exists under current law even without the tax bill."
Smetters called this "a truly fantastical claim," noting that his own organization's estimates show that the legislation, according to the text passed by the House, would increase U.S. deficits by $2.8 trillion by 2035.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.