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President Donald Trump‘s “Big, Beautiful Bill” is facing criticism, even from within his own party, as some lawmakers remain skeptical about the massive spending package and its potential impact on the nation’s debt, despite it being under consideration by a Republican-controlled Congress.
The spending bill, which the House passed late last month and is now in the Senate’s hands, aims to address a number of issues, including tax policy, border security and immigration, defense, energy production, the debt limit, and adjustments to SNAP and Medicaid.
However, without a serious overhaul, lawmakers like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is still a “no” on the legislation because it will increase the nation’s debt limit. He is among a group of at least four Republican senators who have expressed concerns over Trump’s bill, because of the package’s projected increase in the national debt.
This week, Paul relayed his concerns to media members that the bill will raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion.
“We have never raised the debt ceiling without actually meeting that target,” he said. “So you can say it doesn’t directly add to the debt, but if you increase the ceiling $5 trillion, you’ll meet that. And what it does is it puts it off the back-burner. And then we won’t discuss it for a year or two.”
As of Tuesday, the national debt, which measures what the U.S. owes its creditors, was $36.2 trillion, according to the Treasury Department. Trump pushed back on Paul’s remarks about his bill.
The outlook for the federal debt level is bleak, as FOX Business previously reported, with economists increasingly sounding the alarm over the torrid pace of spending by Congress and the White House.
Under the terms of the bill, the bill would add over $2 trillion to budget deficits over a decade, according to a recent analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
All together, the tax cuts and reforms in the package add nearly $3.8 trillion to the deficit over a decade – though spending reductions in other parts of the bill offset some of that to arrive at the $2.3 trillion figure.
Elon Musk, who ended his tenure last week as Trump’s lead in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), doubled down on his position Tuesday that the House’s reconciliation package was an “abomination.”
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk posted on X Tuesday. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
The Trump administration and some congressional Republicans have pushed back on the estimates of the bill, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and its impact on the deficit, arguing that economic growth from the tax cuts will stimulate economic activity and lead to more tax revenue than what is projected.
“Hope it does a lot to get some further cuts,” Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., told Fox News about the bill. “We don’t want to bankrupt the country. And what Elon also should recognize is we don’t need more solar and EV credits. That actually makes it worse. He probably knows that, though.”
To push back on the criticism, the White House launched a website where Americans can tabulate how much the bill will personally save them.
The House passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on May 22 with a narrow 215-214-1 vote that went largely along party lines.
If that version of the bill is revised by the Senate, the legislation will have to go back to the House for another vote before it can go to Trump’s desk and become law.
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