Lisa Desjardins:
Right, and it’s not just a big bill. In fact, it is the largest in terms of dollars, in terms of tax cuts and spending cuts in U.S. history. So it’s easy to get lost in this, but I think we have found some ways to make it more understandable.
First, let’s look at the main blocks in this bill. There’s really six of them. Tax cuts, money for the border and for defense, these ones are money going out of the federal government, essentially. Then, bottom, you have reforms and spending cuts. health care, green energy cuts, SNAP food program, and student loans. That’s money that would come in.
You put all that together, do the math, and you end up with around $4 trillion in costs for this bill. That does include interest. Now, of course, some of these pieces are bigger than others, so let’s look at that with a little bit more depth.
Imagine this bill. This is 100 dots representing 100 percent of the bill, money in and out, so we can compare what’s happening in this bill. Let’s look at those items we talked about just a minute ago, the border money and DOD, those SNAP cuts, student loan cuts, and then green energy.
You can see that, while they will affect millions, dollar-wise, they’re not a huge part of the bill. Let’s add something else, the health care cuts for Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, a little bit more of the bill from that, but really, the giant factor in this bill are the tax cuts right there, more than 60 percent of the bill.
These three dots are other miscellaneous things, but, really, this bill is all about the tax cuts.
