Senate budget would add more to the national debt than any other in history: watchdog

The U.S. Senate is poised to pass a budget that could potentially add far and away more to the national debt than any legislation in history.

Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) and Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee will meet Wednesday with president Donald Trump ahead of a vote later this week on a compromise budget resolution, but the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget warned the bill would add up to $5.8 trillion to the federal deficit.

"Based on the details as we understand them," the nonprofit group said in a statement, "we estimate that this would allow twice as much additional borrowing as the House budget and double projected debt growth over the next decade and beyond to 134 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2034 and 211 percent by 2055, compared to 117 and 156 percent, respectively, under CBO's current law baseline."

If the $5.8 trillion estimate is correct, that would be more than double the House budget's $2.8 trillion and more than three times larger than the 2021 American Rescue Plan, which is the largest deficit increase from reconciliation legislation in history, and nearly four time higher than the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The GOP bill would allow the Senate Finance Committee to increase deficits by $1.5 trillion in addition to using a budget gimmick to hide about $3.8 trillion in extensions to the Trump tax cuts, in addition to other borrowing that would be approved, although total borrowing could be less than the estimated $5.8 trillion.

If the borrowing does meet the Senate's ceiling, the debt would rise twice as fast as current law allows to a projected 134 percent of GDP by 2034 and 211 percent by 2055.

"Said another way, debt will grow more than 50 percent under current law but could more than double by 2055," the watchdog group said.

"If the full $5.8 trillion of borrowing were ultimately made permanent, debt would grow even more rapidly," the group added. "If these reports are true, this would set a terrible precedent and double the growth of debt as a share of GDP over the next decade. Policymakers should reject these fiscally irresponsible efforts."