Unpacking the baseline battle: Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ and the national debt

(The Center Square) – Top U.S. Senate Republicans are eyeing a controversial accounting method to theoretically slash the multi trillion-dollar price tag of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”  However, tax policy experts remain strongly divided over whether the tactic would constitute legitimate policy or a recipe for fiscal disaster. The current version of the budget reconciliation package, entitled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act , passed the U.S. House on a razor-thin margin. The bill would give a 10-year extension to key portions of the expiring 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, and fulfill Trump’s energy, border security and defense agenda. Using the traditional current law baseline, House leaders calculated that the tax cut extensions would lead to an estimated $4.3 trillion in lost revenue over the next decade.  To help offset the cost, House committees included more than $1.7 trillion in savings in the package. They assumed that economic growth from the tax cut extension would cover the rest, though the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates the bill would still add at least $3.1 trillion to the national debt by 2034. But Senate leaders want to make the tax
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