While the White house claims it will reduce the deficit, the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will increase it further by another $2.4 Trillion.   The Budget Reconciliation bill recently passed by the House is now under consideration in the Senate.

It all boils down to whose projections for economic growth are correct.  Historically, politicians tend to overstate growth rates and leave little room for errors or emergencies.

If economic growth rates are exceptional (3.5%+), then tax revenues would increase enough to reduce our deficit.  However, according to recent projections by the OECD,   growth rates are projected to be nowhere near these levels. In fact, many organizations project growth to fall significantly as governments cut back on covid-era spending and confront new economic uncertainty caused by the tariff environment.  Even when you factor in tariff revenue, this Bill leaves our nation woefully unprepared to deal with our next fiscal crisis or the challenge of war.

Most problematic are the numerous provisions of the Bill that undermine the foundations of our Democracy. The most serious is Section 70302, which severely restrict federal courts’ authority to hold government officials in contempt if they violate judicial orders. This is a direct attack on our system of Checks and Balances and undermines the Court’s ability to serve as a guardrail against unlawful power grabs and Executive Branch overreaches. It undermines the very foundation on which our nation was built.

Rather than investing in top priorities such as critical infrastructure, education and defense, more than 20% of all federal revenues are diverted toward paying interest on our debt, which has never been this high. Worse yet, the inability of Congress to address them led to numerous  downgrades of our national debt, the most recent being Moody’s on May 16^th .  Americans are already seeing the consequences everywhere: higher mortgage rates, higher auto loans, and an economy struggling to support its massive debt burden. If corrective action is not taken quickly, economists predict these negative trends will get much worse.

 While the premise of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) is a noble one, the execution strategy leaves much to be desired.  Eliminating waste, fraud and abuse is critical to a functioning government and must be done in collaboration with those who understand the underlying agencies the best.  Rather than unleashing outsiders armed with chainsaws, DOGE administrators should be strongly encouraged to collaborate with agency heads, inspector generals, and subject matter experts to cut wasteful spending in every agency.  Similar to sequestration, every agency should be given a meaningful goal to achieve.  Addressing our current debt level will require sacrifice from everyone. There is no other way.