The White House derided the historically nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office as a “partisan and political” institution Tuesday after it projected low economic growth and predicted that President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” would add trillions to the national deficit.
“There hasn’t been a single staffer in the entire Congressional Budget Office that has contributed to a Republican since the year 2000. But guess what? There have been many staffers within the Congressional Budget Office who have contributed to Democrat candidates and politicians every single cycle,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday.
“So unfortunately, this is another institution in our country that has become partisan and political, and we are very confident in our own economic analysis of this bill,” Leavitt said.
The Congressional Budget Office, established in 1974, was created “to provide objective, nonpartisan information to support the Congressional budget process and to help the Congress make effective budget and economic policy,” the office’s website states. CBO data and analysis provides an alternative to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.
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“CBO conducts objective, impartial analysis and hires employees without regard to political affiliation,” the site notes.
The CBO has estimated the bill will add trillions to the national deficit over the next decade. The tax provisions are estimated to add $3.8 trillion to the deficit over ten years, while the decreases in Medicaid, food benefit and other spending totals around $1 trillion in reduced spending.
The CBO has also projected low growth over the next decade. Growth is projected to cool from 2.3% in 2024 to 1.9% in 2025 to 1.8% in 2026.
Those estimates have been met with Trump’s ire. He posted last week on Truth Social that “The Democrat inspired and ‘controlled’ Congressional Budget Office (CBO) purposefully gave us an EXTREMELY LOW level of Growth, 1.8% over 10 years. How ridiculous and unpatriotic is that! They did the same thing to us in 2017, and we DOUBLED their numbers.”
Speaker Mike Johnson has also argued the CBO is incorrect, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “they always underestimate the growth that will be brought about by tax cuts and reduction in regulations.”
It’s not exactly a new sentiment among Republicans. House GOP Rep. Ralph Norman told NOTUS in May that he doesn’t believe CBO projections, before claiming without evidence that the CBO “give[s] money to Planned Parenthood.”
Trump’s bill has its opposition, even within his own party.
GOP Sens. and fiscal hawks Ron Johnson and Rand Paul have expressed concern about the bill.
Paul said Monday on CNBC’s Squawk Box he wants further cuts and that he is “just not open to supporting $5 trillion ... in debt ceiling increase.”
And political ally Elon Musk posted on X during the press conference, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.”
“It’s not news that they disagree with this president on policy, and the President has vocally called them out for it and for them not having their facts together,” Leavitt told reporters Tuesday of the bill’s Republican opponents.
In a reply to Musk, Sen. Mike Lee posted: “Federal spending has become excessive The resulting inflation harms Americans And weaponizes government The Senate can make this bill better It must now do so.”
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Nuha Dolby is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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