‘Build Back Better’ Programs Will Add $3 Trillion to Deficit if Made Permanent

At the request of multiple Republican senators, the Democrats fighting to advance President Biden’s Build Back Better plan, the gargantuan reconciliation package that creates and expands a boatload of social programs, obtained a modified budgetary effects score from the Congressional Budget Office Friday.

The office’s most recent analysis finds that if major provisions in BBB were not embedded with sunset clauses and were made permanent, which Republicans argue is the Democrats’ hidden intention, the bill would add $2.8 trillion more to the national debt over the next decade than the original CBO score projected.

In response to the new score, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham slammed what he said were misleading tactics by the Democrats to attempt to mute the true budget burden of BBB. “They put a sunset on the program is to lower the cost. It’s a budget gimmick..it’s going to be a death blow to our economy,” he said.

During a briefing Friday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki dismissed the new score and Republican reactions to it.