GOP bill for Trump’s agenda would add $2.4 trillion to the debt, budget office says

WASHINGTON — The sweeping Republican bill for President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda is projected to add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years, according to a new estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

It is slightly higher than an earlier version of the bill, which the CBO projected to add $2.3 trillion in new debt.

The long-awaited new score factors in a series of last-minute revisions GOP leaders made to placate holdouts before the House passed the legislation last month. The changes include a higher state and local tax (SALT) deduction and a provision that triggers the Medicaid work requirements sooner than the original legislation did.

Overall, CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation found that over a 10-year period, the legislation would decrease revenues by $3.7 trillion, while cutting net spending by $1.3 trillion — for a total of $2.4 trillion in new red ink.

The budget office also estimated that the House-passed bill “would increase by 10.9 million the number of people without health insurance” by 2034, due to the spending cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

The is now in the hands of the Senate, where top Republicans want to pass a revised version by July 4. It is unclear what changes they will make or how those revisions would impact the deficit.

The score contradicts claims by the White House and GOP leaders that the bill won’t worsen the national debt. They have highlighted the spending while downplaying the tax cuts and extensions that affect the long-term budget outlook.

And it emboldens new criticism by Trump’s former billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who excoriated the bill Tuesday as a “disgusting abomination,” citing the increase in the debt.