The GOP Tax Bill Will Add $1.8 Trillion to the National Debt: CBO
Taxes

The GOP Tax Bill Will Add $1.8 Trillion to the National Debt: CBO

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The Congressional Budget Office released new estimates Tuesday of projected federal deficits over the next decade. On top of the deficits already forecast for the next decade, the CBO said the tax bill will increase the national debt by $1.8 trillion, including interest costs, on a static basis.

Overall public debt is projected to climb to nearly the size of the size of the U.S. economy by 2027, about six percentage points higher than the previous projection for the 10-year period and up from its current level of roughly 75 percent of GDP. By 2027, “debt held by the public would increase from the 91.2 percent of gross domestic product in CBO’s June 2017 baseline to 97.5 percent,” CBO director Keith Hall wrote to Sen. Ron Wyden, who requested the analysis.

Here are the CBO’s estimates for annual deficits, with the tax bill’s contributions, from both revenue losses and additional interest costs, noted in parentheses:

2018: $699 billion ($137 billion)

2019: $975 billion ($286 billion)

2020: $1,048 billion ($273 billion)

2021: $1,123 billion ($244 billion)

2022: $1,235 billion ($208 billion)

2023: $1,233 billion ($175 billion)

2024: $1,246 billion ($163 billion)

2025: $1,388 billion ($163 billion)

2026: $1,446 billion ($94 billion)

2027: $1,486 billion ($23 billion)

Cumulative deficit, 2018-2017: $11.9 trillion ($1.8 trillion)

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