Newt Gingrich

Molly Butler / Media Matters

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Fox contributor Newt Gingrich organizes MAGA attacks against Congressional Budget Office

New CBO estimates show the GOP's “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” will add trillions to the debt, fund tax cuts for the rich on the backs of the poorest Americans

Written by Zachary Pleat

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Congressional reporter Mychael Schnell from The Hill revealed on May 19 that House Republicans were sharing talking points drafted by Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich in anticipation of the Congressional Budget Office’s scoring of the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” tax cut extension promoted by President Donald Trump.

The CBO analysis released on May 20 shows that the Trump tax cuts will add trillions to the debt and redistribute money from the poorest Americans in the form of massive tax cuts for the wealthy. A May 20 column by Gingrich, the draft of which was apparently shared in advance with GOP lawmakers, called the CBO “one of President Trump’s most powerful opponents,” which has a “pro spending and anti tax cut bias” — criticisms which Gingrich has repeatedly aimed at the CBO during the second Trump administration. Multiple Fox personalities and GOP guests took up Gingrich’s charge against the CBO, a nonpartisan agency tasked with giving Congress an objective cost analysis of proposed legislation, with one Fox Business host uttering some of Gingrich’s exact words from his column.

MAGA supporters of Trump’s tax legislation also specifically criticized the accuracy of the CBO’s revenue projections of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, even though budget and tax experts point out that the CBO’s long-term revenue projections from the 2017 tax law were highly accurate. They also took issue with the CBO’s economic projections of 1.8% annual GDP growth through 2035 and baselessly claimed annual growth of 3% was more realistic. (Republican politicians and right-wing media have frequently promised GDP growth in excess of 3% stemming from their policies, but annual economic growth never reached that point during the first Trump administration when many of the same tax policies were enacted.) Additionally, dozens of economic forecasters have revised their growth predictions under Trump downward.

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  • The CBO predictions show massive debt accumulation, income losses among the poorest to give more tax cuts to the rich

    • The CBO’s most recent cost estimate of the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” shows that it will add at least $2.3 trillion to deficits through 2035. Additionally, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget added its own estimates from various versions of the bill and interest costs, finding that it would add nearly $3.1 trillion in deficits. [Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, 5/21/25]
    • A distributional analysis of the bill from the CBO showed that it would reduce income for the poorest 10% of Americans by 4% by 2029, while increasing the incomes of the top 10%. Former Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman commented, “I'm not sure I've ever seen such a brutal distributional analysis from CBO. This contrasts the Medicaid and SNAP cuts for the lowest decile with the tax cuts for the top decile.” [Congressional Budget Office, 5/20/25; Twitter/X, 5/20/25]
    • Other analyses show that the GOP tax bill will take money from the poor to give to the rich and strip millions of Medicaid coverage. Analyses from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Penn Wharton Budget Model, and Yale’s Budget Lab all agree that the bill will reduce benefits and/or income for the poorest Americans while delivering most of its benefits to the richest. [Media Matters, 5/20/25]

  • Fox contributor Newt Gingrich has repeatedly attacked the CBO during the second Trump administration

    • Gingrich’s column circulated by House Republicans: “Congressional Budget Office vs President Trump.” Gingrich called the CBO “one of President Donald J. Trump’s most powerful opponents” for his tax legislation, accusing it of having “a long history of opposition to conservative reforms.” He additionally said that the CBO “consistently underestimated the growth impact of the conservative tax cuts” and has a “pro-spending, anti-tax cut bias,” while further complaining about the CBO’s economic growth projections. Gingrich claimed: “With an honest CBO, the Make America Affordable Again Act would sail through Congress.” He concluded that “the CBO should be replaced.” [Gingrich 360, 5/20/25]
    • Gingrich: “Why the Congressional Budget Office should be replaced as it seeks to kill President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill: the Make America Affordable Again Act.” Gingrich quoted Trump National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett complaining about the CBO’s growth assumptions for GDP (even after the first quarter of the Trump administration ended in an economic contraction) and added: “With an honest CBO the bill would sail through Congress.” [Twitter/X, 5/17/25]
    • Gingrich complained that the CBO halved a GOP estimate of savings from banning Medicaid from covering gender-affirming treatments for minors. [Twitter/X, 5/19/25]
    • Gingrich on Fox Business: “Not counting the Democrats in Congress, there are three great centers of resistance: The fake news, the district judges, … and then the Congressional Budget Office. All three are bastions of left-wing thinking, all three are going to try to undermine the president.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 4/29/25]
    • Gingrich: “Now that the left lost the American people in the House, Senate and Presidency the last three centers defending the corrupt old order are fake news, fake Congressional Budget Office and unconstitutional district judges pretending to be presidents.” Gingrich added: “All 3 will fail.” [Twitter/X, 4/28/25]

  • Fox hosts and Republican guests took up Gingrich’s attacks on the CBO as his column was shared among the GOP

    • Fox Business host Elizabeth MacDonald directly echoed Gingrich’s column, saying: “We don’t have an honest CBO. If we had one, this bill would sail through Congress.” MacDonald also said the CBO is “off the rails” for scoring the bill with “GDP growth of only 1.8%.” Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Stephen Miran agreed and also complained about the CBO’s prediction of growth. [Fox Business, The Evening Edit, 5/19/25]
    • Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) on Varney & Co. criticized the CBO for projecting a revenue decrease from the 2017 Trump tax cuts. Hagerty said: “A lot of the projections, a lot of the prognosticators, are pointing to a growth in the deficit, revenue shortfalls, etc. I’ll take us back to 2017. If you think about what the Congressional Budget Office was saying, they were looking at a revenue decrease from President Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. What happened? We actually had a revenue increase.” In reality, multiple independent analyses of the 2017 TCJA show that actual federal revenue declined as a result of the tax cuts. [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 5/20/25; Tax Policy Center, January 2024; Center for American Progress, 4/30/24; Tax Foundation, 7/10/24; Chicago Booth Review, 12/18/24]
    • Fox Business host Larry Kudlow and former Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore trashed CBO projections while discussing the GOP tax bill. Moore said: “The Congressional Budget Office does not take into account any of the growth estimates.” He added: “Why do they always make these mistakes? How long have you and I talked about this? For 35 years. The Congressional Budget Office has a cracked crystal ball, they make forecasts that don’t work, they were $1.5 trillion wrong on the 2017 bill.” Kudlow chimed in: “We’re going to bring in — Newt Gingrich is coming in, because he wants to end the CBO as it exists now, and that’s a really good idea, as you’ve been saying.” [Fox Business, Kudlow, 5/19/25]
    • Kudlow: “I want Trump to come down and maul … gang up on the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO. They are villainous.” Kudlow continued: “They are underestimating growth, they do it all the time. … The point is, they have a 1.8% growth rate. … They ought to have a 3% growth rate.” He added: “The CBO is stubbornly holding this back, and essentially, they are robbing this reconciliation process of over $4 trillion of revenues.” He later concluded: “Now, this is a killer. … There should be a campaign. They have been thwarting Republicans for all these years. This career staff’s all Democrat. Something’s got to be done about the” CBO. Fox contributor Katie Pavlich then joined in on the criticism. [Fox Business, Kudlow, 5/19/25]
    • Pavlich on the tax bill’s CBO score: “You should throw that out the window because it doesn’t calculate extra taxes that are paid once you get more of your money back and you put it back into the economy.” [Fox News, The Five, 5/19/25]
    • Former Trump National Economic Council chief economist Joe Lavorgna on Fox Business: “CBO’s forecasts have always been poor.” [Fox Business, Making Money, 5/19/25]
    • Kevin Hassett complained about the CBO’s GDP forecast on Fox Business. Hassett said: “Put it this way, Maria, right now the CBO’s projecting that we're going to have anemic growth, despite all of these big policy wins, of only about 1.8% in the long run. If you go to 3% growth, which I think is a lowball estimate given all the productivity we’re getting out of artificial intelligence, and then the boon from dereg and tax cuts, we get the 3% growth, then revenue goes up by about $4 trillion. That’s the cost of the tax bill that they’re talking about right now. Three percent growth and you're home free.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 5/19/25]
    • Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade: “What they don’t take into account is — I think two-thirds of those that work for the CBO are Democrats.” Kilmeade then echoed others by complaining about the CBO’s GDP forecast for the legislation. Earlier on the program, Kilmeade dismissed the CBO’s estimate for how the bill would add to the national debt, referring to the office as “the CBO, the so-called nonpartisan, which seems to be partisan.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 5/19/25, 5/19/25]