On July 29, The Signal published a letter from Jim de Bree in response to my letter dated July 18. In my letter I challenged Jonathan Kraut to cite within the One Big Beautiful Bill which part would raise the national debt by $3 trillion.
Mr. de Bree answered the challenge and claimed that the Congressional Budget Office said the bill would increase the deficits (I think he/they meant the debt), by $3.4 trillion over the 2025-34 period if all things remained static. What Mr. de Bree does not do was to point out within the bill where the language is that would cause the debt to increase by $3.4 trillion, which is what I also challenged Mr. Kraut to do.
Mr. Kraut and Mr. de Bree can’t do this because such language does not exist. They can’t point to a spending increase that equals $3 trillion because it’s not there. What the bill does is make existing tax rates permanent for everyone that pays federal taxes. Had the bill not passed, then it would have LOWERED the debt by $3.4 trillion over 10 years by RAISING taxes by $3.4 trillion on everyone who pays federal taxes. The $3.4 trillion would have been a tax increase on everyone and that in theory would have lowered the debt over the next 10 years but that isn’t the same as raising the debt $3.4 trillion. Keeping the status quo on tax rates does not increase the debt one penny. However, I will concede that raising taxes could lower the debt in theory.
These are the games that people play, especially when it comes to our debt. We do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. Had the 2017 Trump tax cuts been permanent, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion. It is absolutely incomprehensible given how much we pay in taxes, especially here in California, that people like Kraut and de Bree never talk about the spending side of the equation. The reason is that because it’s never enough! The three top tax brackets for federal income taxes are 32%, 35%, and 37%. But it’s still not enough for people like Kraut and de Bree and the left. They want more and if they don’t get more, then the debt will balloon or explode while ignoring the real reason why the balloon will burst one day. It’s the spending!
The bottom line is that the debt does not “increase” by one penny in the bill because tax rates remain static. Keeping things, (tax brackets), the same does not increase the debt. The debt WILL go DOWN by a trillion dollars via cuts to Medicaid. It’s funny how they don’t talk about the debt going down by a trillion because of the Medicaid cuts but that’s another topic for a different time. Nobody can accurately project what the debt is going to be in 10 years because it fluctuates depending on who is in control. Democrats are in favor of a lot more spending and Republicans, for the most part, are in favor of a little more spending but they are both the problem.
And finally I want to comment on using the Congressional Budget Office as a source of information. The CBO is a partisan office within Congress that is supposed to give Congress accurate assessments on the fiscal impact of various bills. They are supposed to be nonpartisan, but they are not. I question their assessments and if you want just some reasons why, look at what they said about Obamacare or the hilariously titled Inflation Reduction Act. What the CBO, Kraut and de Bree should have said is that if we don’t raise tax rates to where they were in 2016, the the debt will be $3.4 trillion higher over the next 10 years than if we had kept the rates the same as they are today. That would be an accurate analysis and one the taxpayer can easily wrap their mind around rather playing word games about the topic. That the CBO and others still call it a $3.4 trillion increase in the debt shows how disingenuous they are.
Brian Richards
Stevenson Ranch
