The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provided its analysis of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (H. Con. Res. 14) on May 20, 2025, setting the stage for a contentious vote in the House just days later. The legislation narrowly passed the House of Representatives in a 215-214 pre-dawn vote. The analysis, requested by Democratic leaders, estimates the legislation would increase federal deficits by $3.8 trillion over the 2026–2034 period while slashing safety net programs and delivering substantial tax cuts to high earners.

The CBO delivers impartial, nonpartisan analyses of economic and fiscal policies to inform and guide the federal budget process in the U.S. Congress. 

The CBO’s distributional analysis shows households in the lowest income decile (earning under $32,200 annually) would see resources shrink by 2% in 2027 and 4% by 2033, driven by $698 billion in Medicaid cuts and $267 billion in reduced Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) spending. 8.6 million Americans could lose Medicaid coverage, and approximately 3 million people could lose SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) benefits each month.

On the other side of the financial spectrum, the top 10% of earners (averaging $444,600 annually) would gain 4% in 2027 and 2% in 2033, primarily from permanent extensions of Trump-era tax cuts, including a $2.1 trillion extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimates 68% of tax cuts would flow to the wealthiest fifth of Americans by 2027, with the top 1% receiving an average $255,670  annual windfall. This figure likely understates the benefit to the wealthy, as it does not account for additional estate tax cuts for multimillion-dollar estates. 

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) warned that the bill’s debt increase (including interest) could worsen recent credit downgrades, like Moody’s announcement that the United States lost its perfect Aaa score, moving it down to Aa1. Temporary provisions, like tip and overtime tax exemptions, artificially lower the 10-year cost; making them permanent would add $5.1 trillion to deficits.

Medicare faces automatic 4% cuts annually starting in 2026, totaling $500 billion by 2034 under PAYGO (Pay-As-You-Go) rules triggered by the bill. 

Investors expressed concerns over the U.S. debt trajectory, with the national debt already exceeding $36.2 trillion. 

As of May 2025, the U.S. national debt stands at $36.21 trillion, with debt held by the public reaching $28.9 trillion. The Treasury Department began employing extraordinary measures on January 21, 2025, after the debt ceiling was reinstated under the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023. Secretary Scott Bessent projects these measures will be exhausted by August 2025, urging Congress to act by mid-July to avoid default.

The national debt increased by $8.18 trillion during Donald Trump’s 2016-2020 presidency, the largest single-term deficit in American history.