The Trump Tax Cuts Bill of 2025: A Fiscal Reckoning Delayed
The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (H.R. 1, 119th Congress) is a sweeping piece of legislation that narrowly passed the U.S. House of Representatives on May 22, 2025, with a vote of 215-214, and the Senate on July 1, 2025, with Vice President JD Vance breaking a tie. Combining tax cuts, spending reductions, increased funding for border security and defense, and a massive debt ceiling hike, the bill is touted by supporters as a boost to economic growth and national security.
However, a closer examination reveals it to be a fiscally reckless measure that balloons the national debt, postpones critical financial reforms, and exemplifies politicians dodging tough choices.
Overview of the Bill
The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" includes the following key provisions:
-Tax Cuts: Permanently extends many provisions from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (e.g., lower income tax rates, a larger standard deduction, and a higher estate tax threshold) and adds temporary measures like no tax on tips and overtime, plus a $6,000 deduction for seniors (phasing out at higher incomes and expiring in 2028).
-Spending Reductions: Cuts funding for Medicaid, food stamps, education, and green energy initiatives, though these reductions fall short of balancing the bill’s fiscal impact.
-Border Security and Defense: Boosts funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Border Patrol, and the U.S. Coast Guard, including $20 billion for coastal security.
-Debt Ceiling Increase: Raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion in the Senate version, up from the House’s $4 trillion proposal.
The Senate’s version, with deeper Medicaid cuts and a higher debt ceiling increase, now awaits a final House vote, potentially as early as July 2, 2025. However, opposition from some House Republicans to the Senate’s changes could jeopardize its passage.
The Debt Ceiling Increase: A Dangerous Escalation
The debt ceiling caps how much the U.S. government can borrow to meet its obligations. Raising it prevents default but also greenlights more debt accumulation, with long-term risks like higher interest rates and economic stagnation.
The Senate’s $5 trillion increase—a jump from the House’s $4 trillion—is unprecedented in scale. For comparison, the debt ceiling rose by $2.5 trillion in 2021 and $480 billion in 2019. With the national debt already exceeding $35 trillion in July 2025, and annual interest payments projected to top $1 trillion by 2030 (per the Congressional Budget Office), this hike is a red flag.
This massive increase lets the government keep spending without tackling underlying fiscal issues, setting a perilous precedent. It risks eroding investor confidence, potentially triggering a credit downgrade like the one in 2011 when Standard & Poor’s dropped the U.S. rating from AAA to AA+. Rather than solving problems, it’s a temporary patch that deepens the nation’s financial hole.
Adding to the National Debt: A Crushing Legacy
The bill doesn’t just raise the borrowing limit—it actively piles on more debt. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimates the Senate version will add $4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, including interest. This figure persists despite spending cuts, which save only $1.2 trillion (per CBO estimates) against $2.8 trillion in lost revenue from tax cuts and additional security spending.
The tax cuts may win votes, but they’re not fiscally neutral. Permanent extensions of 2017 provisions and new temporary breaks create a $1.6 trillion shortfall (plus interest) that must be borrowed. This debt surge threatens to crowd out private investment, slow growth, and hamstring future crisis response. With interest costs ballooning, the federal budget will increasingly prioritize debt servicing over infrastructure, education, or healthcare—leaving a crushing burden for tomorrow’s taxpayers.
Kicking the Can Down the Road: Avoiding the Inevitable
This bill epitomizes Washington’s habit of dodging fiscal responsibility. By hiking the debt ceiling and piling on debt, it sidesteps tough calls on entitlement reform, tax simplification, or spending cuts that match revenue losses. Politicians score short-term wins—tax cuts and security boosts—while postponing the hard work of balancing the books.
This strategy is a ticking time bomb. The longer the debt crisis festers, the harsher the eventual fix, whether through tax hikes or program cuts. Temporary measures like the 2028-expiring tax breaks only add uncertainty, undermining long-term planning for families and businesses. Instead of a stable fiscal path, we get another Band-Aid, pushing the nation closer to a breaking point where borrowing costs could spike or markets could falter.
A Radical Alternative: Abolish the IRS and Federal Reserve
Rather than patching the tax system with debt-fueled legislation, President Trump could pursue transformative reforms. Two provocative ideas stand out: abolishing the IRS and the Federal Reserve.
-Eliminating the IRS: Scrapping the IRS could dismantle the convoluted tax code, slashing compliance costs for individuals and businesses. A simpler system—perhaps a flat tax or national sales tax—might replace it, but this would demand a total reimagining of revenue collection. It’s a radical shift that could streamline government but faces steep political and practical hurdles.
-Dismantling the Federal Reserve: Abolishing the Fed would end centralized control of monetary policy, curbing the government’s ability to tweak interest rates and money supply. Advocates claim this could stabilize the currency and curb economic meddling, but skeptics warn of chaos—unmanaged recessions and a shaken dollar.
These concepts are lightning rods, likely to spark fierce resistance from entrenched powers. Yet they underscore a key point: tinkering with taxes while borrowing more is a half-measure. The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" clings to the status quo; bold action, however contentious, could attack the debt crisis at its roots.
The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" of 2025 is a fiscal misstep masquerading as progress. Its $5 trillion debt ceiling hike and $4 trillion debt increase fuel a growing crisis, while temporary tax cuts and inadequate spending reductions dodge the real issues. Politicians are kicking the can down the road, delaying a reckoning that grows costlier with time.
President Trump could chart a different course—exploring drastic reforms like abolishing the IRS and Federal Reserve—rather than leaning on legislation that papers over problems with borrowed billions. As the House weighs the Senate’s version, the choice is stark: more debt-fueled denial or a hard pivot to fiscal reality.