Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) sowed doubt in the Congressional Budget Office’s reports of the “big, beautiful bill” adding trillions of added debt due to the office’s track record of “crazy numbers.”
The CBO issued its latest report on the One Big Beautiful Bill in the days before the Senate passed the bill, where it ultimately saw some changes before it was also passed in the House and signed into law. At first, the CBO reported the House’s version of the bill would add $6 trillion to the debt while the Senate version was projected to add $3.3 trillion.
While hosting Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures, former Rep. Jason Chaffetz referred to the CBO as “the big lie.”
“Why does Congress continue to put up with the Congressional Budget Office?” Chaffetz asked Smith Sunday. “I mean they’re nowhere close, they’re not even in the ballpark of accuracy, and yet members all rely on them. Isn’t it time to just get rid of the Congressional Budget Office?”
“There’s no question, Jason, there needs to be reforms, and it needs to be addressed,” Smith said. “Because just in the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act alone, they were off by $1.7 trillion in their projected revenues. They said it was going to add $1.5 trillion to the deficit, and then when you look at the numbers from 2017 to 2025, they were off 1.7.”
“The Inflation Reduction Act, they said that it would cost $282 billion for all the green energy tax scam credits that the Democrats ushered through. We cut over $500 billion in this bill. So if it only cost $282 billion, how do you cut $500 billion?” Smith went on. “Their numbers are crazy. Goldman Sachs said that, in fact, that number is $1.2 trillion of Green Credits from the IRA.”
Chaffetz also noted that revenue to the Treasury went up following the 2017 law when the CBO predicted it would go down.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the CBO for comment.
Meanwhile, the White House Council of Economic Advisers reported that the Senate’s version of the bill would result in a $2.1 to $2.3 trillion deficit. This analysis took into account the $1.3 to $3.7 trillion in additional offsetting deficit reduction over 10 years.
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According to the nonpartisan think tank the Tax Foundation, the Senate’s tax plan would reduce federal tax revenue by $4.7 trillion between 2025 and 2034.
Neither group has offered an analysis of the most recent version of the law.