The cost of this albatross is astronomical and will push our national debt to unprecedented levels. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it increases the federal deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next decade (actually, $4.1 trillion when you include interest). The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that this number could increase to $5.5 trillion if temporary provisions in the bill are extended, driving our debt held by the public to around 130 percent of GDP by 2034.
It goes without saying this greatly exacerbates our already perilous financial path and vastly increases the risk of a full-blown debt crisis. Not only does this legislation add trillions of dollars to our national debt, but it also reduces the amount of our tax revenue for decades.
What makes this even more frustrating is that, although the bill supposedly cuts federal spending by $1.3 trillion over a decade – with the largest cuts being to Medicaid and the clean energy subsidies from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act – these cuts don’t make any meaningful reduction to our federal debt because of the federal debt the bill creates.
Worse, it substantially increases our debt and deficit without providing any meaningful boost to economic growth. The White House Council of Economic Advisers declared that, thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill, growth could reach 4.9 percent in 2028; there will be “$8.5 to $11.1 trillion in total offsetting deficit reduction from Trump economic policies anchored by the OBBB, including discretionary spending reductions and tariff revenue;” and “debt falls as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) to 94 percent in 2034.”
This is straight-up delusional.
Numbers released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in February 2026 revealed that debt held by the public will balloon to $56 trillion by 2036 and is projected to exceed 100 percent of GDP in 2026. They estimate it will reach 120 percent by 2036 – higher than at any point in U.S. history.
The annual U.S. budget deficit will top $3 trillion by 2036, reaching $3.1 trillion, or 6.7 percent of GDP (up from 5.8 percent in 2026). CBO projects cumulative deficits of $23.1 trillion from 2026 through 2035.
… and these were the numbers before Donald Trump took us to war.
