Trump's budget bill will increase the deficit. Does it matter?

The GOP budget bill is stuck in the Senate, where Republicans are having an intramural debate over how much the legislation will drive up the deficit. And on a more existential note, lawmakers are questioning what it will mean for the nation's future.

What did the commentators say?

Republicans are "squabbling over math" as they try to get President Donald Trump's bill to the finish line, said Axios. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the tax cuts and spending contained in the bill would "add trillions to the deficit," though House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that is wrong because the CBO's estimates assume "anemic growth" in the economy. Even so, more spending cuts are needed, critics like Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) say. Washington cannot "continue to mortgage" the future, he said to Fox News.

The "basic rule of thumb" with the budget is that the government "should spend heavily during times of crisis," said The New York Times. The GOP bill "turns that rule on its head" by creating trillions in debt during relatively good economic times. That risks a "tipping point" in which investors will "demand punishingly high interest rates" to lend the government money. America should not "exhaust our credit line before we hit some bad times," said Harvard University economist Douglas W. Elmendorf.

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The bill's tax cut provisions will be "cripplingly expensive for most Americans" and end up weighing down the economy in "more government red ink," said Jessica Riedl at MSNBC. That is because the "modest growth effects of tax relief" will be drowned out by the "economic drag of adding tens of trillions of dollars" to the federal debt. That money will be diverted from efforts to "start businesses, create jobs and raise incomes." Conservatives prefer low taxes, but "tax cuts without spending cuts are just tax deferrals with interest."

Congress is "whistling past the downgrade," said The Washington Post editorial board. Moody's became the last of the big three agencies to "downgrade America's credit rating" in May, driven by concerns about America's mounting debt. The United States already owes a $29 trillion debt, "just about equivalent to the nation's gross domestic product," and the current budget bill would make the hole deeper. Fixing that "must be a top economic priority" for Republicans.

What next?

"Big changes" to Trump's bill could be made in the Senate, said NPR. A small group of GOP senators, including Johnson and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), are digging in their heels against increasing the debt. White House officials are trying to allay their fears. The Trump administration is "going to bring the deficit down slowly," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday to CBS' "Face the Nation."

Powerful skeptics remain. A group of six Nobel Prize-winning economists said the bill will "weaken key safety-net programs while greatly lifting the federal debt," said CBS News. That will be bad for Americans, said the economists: Growing the federal debt "will put noticeable upward pressure on both inflation and interest rates in coming years."