Republicans are continuing to speak up for US President Donald Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ after a finding it would spike deficits by $2.4 trillion over the decade and leave some 10.9 million more people without health insurance.
Republican senators spent more than an hour in what they called a robust afternoon discussion with Trump, after an analysis released on Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
“We’re committed to making a law that will make the lives of the American people better,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said afterward.
“In the words of Elon Musk, this bill is a ‘disgusting abomination,'” said Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, quoting the billionaire’s criticism of the package.
Musk blindsided Congress with an all-out assault against the bill this week, leaving House Speaker Mike Johnson rushing to do damage control. The GOP speaker said he called Musk to discuss the criticism, but had not heard back. Musk has threatened to use his political apparatus to go after Republicans in the midterm elections.
Hours later, Musk, whose business interests could be impacted by green energy rollbacks in the bill, implored voters to call their representatives and senators. “Bankrupting America is NOT ok!” he wrote on social media, “KILL the BILL.”
Trump is pushing Congress, where Republicans have majority control, to send the final product to his desk to become law by the Fourth of July. The House passed the bill last month by a single vote, but it’s now slogging through the Senate, where Republicans want a number of significant changes, including those discussed with Trump.
The bill includes roughly $3.75 trillion in tax cuts — extending the expiring 2017 individual income tax breaks and temporarily adding new ones that Trump campaigned on, including no taxes on tips. The revenue loss would be partially offset by nearly $1.3 trillion in reduced federal spending elsewhere, namely through Medicaid and food assistance.
As a result, some millions of people would no longer have health insurance.
Republicans argue that their proposals are intended to strengthen Medicaid and other programs by rooting out waste, fraud and abuse.
But Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said those claims are simply part of long-running GOP efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as most states have expanded Medicaid to serve more people under the program.
Additionally, its estimated that nearly 4 million fewer people would have food stamps each month due to the legislation’s proposed changes.
Ahead of the CBO’s release, the White House and Republican leaders criticised the budget office in a preemptive campaign designed to sow doubt in its findings.
Thune said the CBO was “flat wrong” because it underestimated the potential revenue growth from Trump’s first round of tax breaks in 2017.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has also suggested that the CBO’s employees are biased, even though certain budget office workers face strict ethical rules — including restrictions on campaign donations and political activity — to ensure objectivity and impartiality.
During the meeting at the White House, Trump briefly brought up Musk, senators said, with Senator Roger Marshall describing it as “a laughing conversation for 30 seconds.”
The CBO, established 50 years ago, is staffed by some 275 economists, analysts and other employees, with the goal of provding Congress with objective, impartial information about budgetary and economic issues.
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