By Stacy M. Brown
BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent
House Republicans on Thursday approved a budget blueprint that slashes vital programs like Medicaid and child nutrition assistance to help fund an extension of the 2017 Trump tax law. According to a new congressional estimate, this move will cost as much as $5.5 trillion over the next decade when factoring in interest. The plan, backed by House GOP members, would extend tax breaks overwhelmingly benefiting the wealthy and large corporations. Despite claims from Republican senators that the cost would be offset, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now project a staggering long-term price tag: $4.6 trillion without interest and $5.5 trillion, including debt service costs over the next 10 years. According to the JCT estimate, the permanent extension includes maintaining the Trump-era income tax rate brackets, boosting standard deductions, and preserving other business-friendly tax provisions like 100 percent bonus depreciation. The costliest element—extending individual tax provisions—would drain $3.8 trillion from the federal budget over the next decade. Business tax cuts would add another $832 billion to the deficit. Meanwhile, rising debt interest costs tied to the extensions would increase outlays by over $871 billion.
Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-Mass.), and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) requested the estimate to expose what Democrats have called a fiscally irresponsible giveaway to billionaires at the expense of working families. “The country is rapidly undergoing an intensifying economic crisis created by Trump and Congressional Republicans, and the only legislative solution they’ve put forward is to double down on tax cuts for billionaires while eliminating health care access and food assistance for millions of Americans,” said David Kass, Executive Director of Americans for Tax Fairness. “While Congressional Republicans have so far ignored the demands of their constituents—this fight is far from over,” Kass continued. “Americans will not stand by as price-gouging corporations raise their costs while billionaires amass even greater wealth. We call on Republican members of Congress to listen to their constituents: no cuts to Medicaid and SNAP and finally raise taxes on the rich to make billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share.”
