GOP 'lying their heads off' to sell Trump’s bill: analyst
President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
In an article for The New Republic published Monday, journalist Timothy Noah strongly criticized President Donald Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill," saying that the only way the president and his allies can get the legislation passed is by lying about what's in it.
"It’s no small task to double the budget deficit while simultaneously laying waste to the social safety net. But for some reason the Trump administration and the Republican majority in Congress don’t want to take credit. Instead, they’re lying their heads off about the Big Beautiful bill." Noah wrote.
He added: "They won’t fool anybody who’s really paying attention. Let’s hope somebody is. If not now, plenty will soon."
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Noah argued in the article that the 2017 Trump-era tax cuts were founded on a deliberate deception: that they would expire in 2025.
"These tax cuts owe their very existence to a lie that President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans told a credulous public back in 2017," he said, noting that this expiration claim was made to mask the true long-term cost and keep the deficit impact lower on paper.
The author highlighted that the bulk of the tax cuts benefit high-income households — “most of whose benefits go to households earning $217,000, and more than one-third of whose benefits go to households earning $460,000 or more” — according to the Tax Policy Center.
Further, Noah noted that the only part of the 2017 bill actually intended to expire was a revenue-raising measure capping state and local tax (SALT) deductions — a provision Republicans supported because it disproportionately affected blue states.
But now, under pressure from blue-state Republicans, that cap is being partially lifted, another “temporary” measure that he argued is also unlikely to expire as claimed.
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Citing official Congressional Budget Office projections, the author warned that the Senate’s tax package, if scored honestly, “would add $3.3 trillion to the budget deficit over the next 10 years,” more than doubling the current deficit.
