WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate version of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill will add $3.3 trillion to the nation’s debt, about $800 billion more than the version passed last month by the House of Representatives, a nonpartisan forecaster said on Sunday.
The Congressional Budget Office issued its estimate of the bill’s hit to the $36.2 trillion federal debt as Senate Republicans pushed the bill forward in a marathon weekend session.
Republicans, who have long voiced concern about growing U.S. deficits and debt, have rejected the CBO’s longstanding methodology to calculate the cost of legislation. But Democrats hope the latest, eye-widening figure could stoke enough anxiety among fiscally-minded conservatives to get them to buck their party, which controls both chambers of Congress.
“Republicans are doing something the Senate has never, never done before, deploying fake math and accounting gimmicks to hide the true cost of the bill,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said as debate opened on Sunday. “Republicans are about to pass the single most expensive bill in U.S. history, to give tax breaks to billionaires while taking away Medicaid, SNAP benefits and good paying jobs for millions of people.”
The Senate only narrowly advanced the tax-cut, immigration, border and military spending bill in a procedural vote late on Saturday, voting 51-49 to open debate on the 940-page megabill.
Trump on social media hailed Saturday’s vote as a “great victory” for his “great, big, beautiful bill.”
In an illustration of the depths of the divide within the Republican Party over the bill, Senator Thom Tillis said he would not seek re-election next year, after Trump threatened to back a primary challenger in retribution for Tillis’ Saturday night vote against the bill.
Tillis’ North Carolina seat is one of the few Republican Senate seats seen as vulnerable in next year’s midterm elections. He was one of just two Republicans to vote no on Saturday.
Trump wants the bill passed before the July 4 Independence Day holiday. While that deadline is one of choice, lawmakers will face a far more serious deadline later this summer when they must raise the nation’s self-imposed debt ceiling or risk a devastating default on $36.2 trillion in debt.
“We are going to make sure hardworking people can keep more of their money,” Senator Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican, told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.
HITS TO BENEFITS
Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, said this legislation would come to haunt Republicans if it gets approved, predicting 16 million Americans would lose their health insurance.
“Many of my Republican friends know … they’re walking the plank on this and we’ll see if those who’ve expressed quiet consternation will actually have the courage of their convictions,” Warner told CBS News’ “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
The legislation has been the sole focus of a marathon weekend congressional session marked by political drama, division and lengthy delays as Democrats seek to slow the legislation’s path to passage.
