CNN
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President Donald Trump’s megabill and his overall economic agenda would increase economic growth, spur job creation, boost wages and lower the national debt, according to an updated report released Wednesday by the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
The analysis includes measures beyond just the tax provisions in the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which the Senate hopes to vote on this week. It takes into account the president’s deregulatory and energy agendas, tariff revenue, cuts in discretionary spending included in Trump’s budget blueprint and interest savings from lower debt. It does not factor in historic cuts to the nation’s safety net programs, including Medicaid and food stamps.
The report comes to very different conclusions than the Congressional Budget Office and independent analyses of the House package, which generally found that the overall bill would produce muted growth and add to the national debt and interest costs, even after its economic impact is taken into account. Also, lower-income Americans would be left worse off after factoring in the massive spending cuts.
The council projects that the economy would be 4.6% to 4.9% larger and corporate investment would be 7.3% to 10.2% higher, after taking inflation into account, in the first four years after the legislation is enacted. The economy would grow a little more than 1% faster, on average, per year.
Also, the typical family with two children would see their after-tax take-home pay rise by $7,600 to $10,900, in part because wages would be higher. And roughly 7 million jobs would be saved or created.
The tax provisions include making permanent several business tax cuts and the individual income tax breaks in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, as well as temporary tax relief for tipped workers, senior citizens, workers who earn overtime and the construction of new factories, among others. (The tax measures in Senate and House versions differ somewhat so the two chambers would have to unify the legislation before sending it to Trump’s desk.)
Looking over the next decade, the council forecasts that the bill’s tax provisions and Trump’s economic agenda would slash the deficit by $8.5 trillion to $11.1 trillion. Debt as a share of the economy would fall to 94% in 2034, compared to rising to 117% if the 2017 tax cuts are allowed to expire at year’s end.
“We expect this to not only create another low-inflation economic boom, pushing up the supply side of the economy like the president had in his first term, but also to restore fiscal sanity and bring the deficit and debt ratios down,” Stephen Miran, the council’s chair, told reporters on Wednesday.
The CBO found that the House bill would increase the federal deficit by $2.8 trillion over the next decade, after factoring in the economic impact. That’s an even larger deficit increase than the $2.4 trillion impact CBO projected under a previous forecast that did not account for economic effects. The difference stems from the impact of higher interest costs because of increased interest rates.
The economy would expand by an average of 0.5% over the decade, after taking inflation into account, the CBO projects.
Miran countered that the CBO report does not factor in Trump’s full economic agenda. Also, he said the best way to help lower-income Americans is to create a strong economy that would fuel job and wage growth.
Asked whether the roughly $2.8 trillion revenue estimate from tariffs would hold if the US enters into trade deals with other countries, Miran said that any agreements would open foreign markets to more US products, which would bring in more tax revenue so he doesn’t expect much of a difference.
“Some countries may make such aggressive concessions they convince the president to drop tariffs below 10%, but at the same time, I expect there will also be some stubborn holdouts that result in tariff rates that are higher than where we are now,” said Miran, noting that he’s “optimistic” that there will be a “flurry” of frameworks announced before Trump’s July 9th deadline.
