WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk have sent shock waves through the federal government by attempting to take a hatchet to certain agencies in the name of reducing the federal deficit.
“BALANCED BUDGET!!!” Trump posted this month on Truth Social. Musk added on X, “Balanced budget is going to happen.”
But the reality is less simple. Budget experts say that even if Trump succeeds at slashing the spending his Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency is targeting — like the U.S. Agency for International Development and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives governmentwide — his policies would still substantially add to the deficit if they come to fruition.
Trump has called for a series of steep tax cuts — from extending his expiring 2017 tax law to eliminating taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security benefits — that would add at least $5 trillion to the 10-year deficit compared to the red ink if no changes are made to current federal law, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. That figure could rise to $11 trillion depending on how his so-far-ambiguous proposals are structured.
“It’s rhetoric versus reality,” said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at CRFB, which calls for reducing red ink. “And it’s always popular to say, ‘I’m reducing the deficit.’ And it’s also popular to distribute a bunch of goodies, and this president is well known for that. So I don’t think their rhetoric matches reality.”
Goldwein said Trump’s administration isn’t the first president to make such boasts, “but the order of magnitude is totally different here” than his predecessors. “They’re talking about balancing the budget on the one hand, where on the other they’re making the problem 25% to 50% worse,” he said.
Congress controls federal spending and it’s unclear how much of Trump’s agenda will pass the Republican-led House and Senate. The House last week approved a budget calling for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and a $4 trillion increase in the U.S. debt limit. They want to offset a portion of that with spending cuts that are unspecified in the budget. Lawmakers say they’re eyeing Medicaid, SNAP benefits and clean energy funding under the Inflation Reduction Act for savings.
Trump has focused heavily on slashing foreign aid, which has ranged between 0.7% and 1.4% of the annual U.S. budget through the 21st century, according to the Pew Research Center. Last year, foreign aid totaled $71.9 billion — or 1.2% of the overall budget, even after adding up emergency assistance to Ukraine.
Trump has also called for dissolving the Education Department, which accounts for about 3% of federal spending, according to the Treasury Department.
“USAID, DEI grants, and education administration are more culture war targets than centerpieces of a true deficit reduction agenda,” said Jessica Riedl, a budget expert and senior fellow at the center-right Manhattan Institute. “Serious deficit reduction requires addressing the 75% of spending going to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, veterans, and interest on the debt. Yet Trump has taken nearly all of those deficit drivers off the table for savings.”
While Trump and Musk have sought to shrink the government workforce, federal workers make up 6% of the budget, according to a Congressional Budget Office report on fiscal 2022.
When it comes to Social Security and Medicare, Trump called for tackling “the theft and the bad management of entitlements” last year, while promising not to jeopardize benefits.
But the president and Musk have yet to show evidence of fraud that would bend the cost curve. An inspector general audit last year found that the error rate in Social Security benefits was 0.84% from fiscal 2015 to 2022 — a total of $71.8 billion in improper payments, “most of which were overpayments,” out of $8.6 trillion total.
“To extend the tax cuts and still balance the budget in Trump’s term would require eliminating 30 percent of the federal budget,” Riedl said. “Incorporating Trump’s promise not to cut Social Security, Medicare would mean that half of all remaining spending must be eliminated to achieve balance. Congress is not going to approve that.”
Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., defended the tax agenda, saying “it’s what the president got elected on.” He said it’s still a work in progress how Republicans offset the cost of extending his 2017 tax cuts that expire at the end of this year.
“That’s what we’re working on right now,” Hern said. “When you’re spending at twice the rate of what your revenue growth is, that’s a problem.”
Some in the GOP say extending the lapsing Trump tax cuts shouldn’t count as red ink. Still, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, warned: “We should be careful with things like that — that can get kind of gimmicky.”
Further complicating matters, Republican leaders are eyeing a substantial increase to the $825 billion military budget this year — the House is pushing for a $100 billion boost, while the Senate calls for a $150 billion spending increase for the Pentagon. And they’re looking at about $150 billion, if not more, in new money for border security and stepped-up immigration enforcement.
Democrats say that Trump, who called himself the “king of debt” during his first campaign, is bamboozling voters with a push for tax cuts that disproportionately benefit upper earners.
“Donald Trump and his co-President Musk could fully eliminate all spending on foreign aid and education, and they still wouldn’t come even close to balancing the budget. Add the Trump tax cuts for billionaires and that will add trillions more to our debt,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. “The money we spend on foreign aid is a shiny penny that Trump is using to distract people from the gold coins that go to tax cuts for his billionaire buddies.”
As Senate Republicans voted Tuesday night to begin advancing their budget resolution, one member of the caucus voted no: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who warned that its “unstated purpose is to increase spending by $342 billion.”
