The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that if provisions of President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act are made permanent, they would add $3 trillion to the federal deficit.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tweeted about the report on Friday, “CBO has provided a true cost of the bill over ten years – assuming the programs never go away – which they will not. Their analysis is stunning!”
“The true cost of the bill has more than doubled and the effect on the deficit is eightfold. This score should stop the effort to pass Build Back Better in its tracks because it will dramatically expand government and do great harm to energy production,” he added.
Republicans asked the CBO for the latest score.
The bill has several provisions that would expire unless they are extended.
The true cost of the bill has more than doubled and the effect on the deficit is eightfold.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 10, 2021
This score should stop the effort to pass Build Back Better in its tracks because it will dramatically expand government and do great harm to energy production.
Biden has repeatedly insisted that his spending plan would be fully paid for by a series of provisions designed to raise revenue.
In October, he claimed, “It will not add to the deficit at all, it will actually reduce the deficit.”
However, the CBO found that the bill would add $367 billion to the deficit over 10 years.
As The Wall Street Journal notes, “For technical reasons, the CBO’s bottom line doesn’t include $207 billion in revenue that the scorekeeper estimates would result from pouring roughly $80 billion into tax-enforcement efforts at the Internal Revenue Service. Adding that revenue to the CBO’s other estimates would make the bill’s 10-year deficit about $160 billion.”
The Biden administration believes increased IRS enforcement would bring in $480 billion in revenue and says the bill would actually decrease the deficit.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blasted the CBO score requested by Republicans, calling it a “phony score of an imaginary bill.”
“As nonpartisan experts have repeatedly confirmed, the Build Back Better Act is fully paid for by ensuring the biggest corporations and wealthiest few pay their fair share in taxes. The Build Back Better Act passed by the House will even pay down the deficit by more than $100 billion in this decade and $2 trillion in the next,” she continued.
Additionally, she insisted that “any future extensions of the life-changing provisions of Build Back Better will be fully paid for.”
CNN’s Manu Raju notes that the request for the score of the bill if the provisions were made permanent was “meant to influence Manchin.”
In order for the bill to pass the Senate, all 50 Democrats would have to vote for it, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote.
However, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) has raised concerns that budget tricks are being used by Democrats to hide the true cost of the bill.
“Debt and inflation are a big concern for me,” Manchin told CNN earlier this month. “Basically, we should pay for what we’re doing.”
Without his support, the bill would not pass the Senate.
