The Big Budgetary Illusion: How the GOP Just Broke the Rules — and Will Come to Regret It
U.S. Republicans rewrote the budget playbook to justify tax cuts. Democrats are already eyeing the same trick — but for Medicare for All.
As the Senate passed the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” the media lit up with talk of tax cuts, supply-side booms, and short-term political cost-benefit analysis. What barely got a mention was the sleight of hand that made it all possible — a quiet, technical manoeuvre that just blew a hole in half a century of fiscal governance.
And Republicans may have just handed American progressives a roadmap for radical spending — the kind they’ve long claimed to oppose.
A little history first
In 1974, Congress passed the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act — a dull-sounding but foundational reform that reshaped how America accounts for its budget. It was forced on Richard Nixon on the eve of his eventual resignation amid the Watergate scandal. One of its cornerstones was the 10-year window rule: if you cut taxes or increased spending, you had to offset that cost somewhere in the same decade. The goal was to prevent legislators from shoving long-term costs onto future generations without a plan.
Over the years, this rule became a hurdle — especially for Republicans keen to push through sweeping tax cuts for the billionaire class. That’s why, for example, the Trump tax cuts of 2017 were made to “sunset” after a few years: it was the only way to make the math work under the 10-year rule.
But that’s no longer the case.
The trick
In passing the Big Beautiful Bill, Republicans didn’t just cut taxes. They changed the rules of the game. Instead of adhering to the “current law baseline” — which calculates the budget assuming no future changes — they substituted in a “current policy baseline.”
That might sound like bureaucratic hair-splitting, but it’s not.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released two sets of scores Saturday and Sunday that reflected both current policy vs current law. Under current policy, the bill would add just over $507 billion over the next decade to U.S. debt. But under current law, the package would add roughly $3.3 trillion.
Under “current law,” if your tax cuts are set to expire, you have to show how you’ll pay for them if you want to extend them. But under “current policy,” you just assume they’ll go on forever — and pretend they’re already paid for.
It’s like saying: “I bought a coffee this morning, therefore all future coffees are now covered.”
Magically, the costs disappear if the GOP uses current policy rather than current law. Magically, your tax cuts look fiscally responsible. Magically, the Congressional Budget Office gives you a friendlier score.
Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made the implications even clearer. Graham claimed sole authority to decide whether provisions of the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act violate the 1974 Congressional Budget Act. In his words:
“If you use current policy, they never expire.”
That is, because the 2017 Trump tax cuts are already in place, Graham ruled that extending them doesn’t technically count as “new” spending — and thus doesn’t add to future deficits.
One man. One interpretation. One massive shift in budget logic.
But magic comes with consequences.
The precedent
Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, sees where this is going. In comments to The Bulwark, he said:
“I'm no sucker. Republicans are doing this? Congratulations Republicans - you just figured out the way how we're going to pay for Medicare for All." He continued, "I 100% believe that Democrats will use this precedent. This will become the new normal moving forward. And the only thing governing us moving forward on deficits and debt will - I believe - be the markets"
Exactly.
By rewriting the rules to make their own unfunded tax cuts seem affordable, the GOP has given Democrats permission to do the same with their wish list. Universal childcare? Paid for. Student debt relief? Paid for. A Green New Deal? Guess what — it’s “current policy” now too.
This isn’t a slippery slope. It’s a fiscal free-fall.
Why it matters
For decades, Republicans positioned themselves as the party of fiscal restraint. They lectured Democrats on debt ceilings and deficit spending. They made a moral case for tight belts and hard choices. But this manoeuvre exposes that rhetoric for what it often was: a posture, not a principle.
In blowing up the old budget constraint, the GOP has opened the door to the very kind of expansive government spending they’ve long warned against.
And they did it for billionaire tax cuts.
Worse still, this kind of accounting gimmick doesn’t just distort domestic policy — it sends a signal to global markets. The U.S. dollar and Treasury market rest on the belief that America still cares, at least a little, about being a responsible steward of the public purse. Undermining that credibility isn’t just politically risky. It’s economically reckless.
Because sooner or later, someone has to pay the bill — and the illusion that nobody will is the most expensive lie in Washington.
Dean M Thomson is currently a lecturer with Beijing Normal - Baptist University (BNBU), formerly known as Beijing Normal - Hong Kong Baptist University, United International College (UIC).
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