'Big Beautiful Bill' trillion-dollar increases to US debt to hit poor hardest

(OSV News) -- Currently standing at $36.2 trillion, the U.S. national debt is predicted by the Congressional Budget Office to increase by $2.8 trillion over 10 years -- $441 billion more than current projections -- upon passage of President Donald Trump's marquee legislation, the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act."

That is just the House bill. The version before the Senate the CBO estimated on June 29 would add $3.3 trillion to the national debt by fiscal year 2034.

The CBO's analysis comes as Senate Republicans claimed to have reduced the cost of the bill by 90%, using an accounting maneuver that doesn't count the cost of continuing any tax policy currently in effect when the bill is passed -- a maneuver Marc Goldwein, a senior vice president and senior policy director at the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, called in a post on X "the biggest and maybe most economically costly gimmick in American history."

While many "Big Beautiful Bill" proposals have been characterized as potentially harmful to the poor -- including the largest historical cuts to Medicaid and SNAP food assistance that will affect millions of Americans -- the role of the national debt and what happens to people in need should also concern Catholics; indeed, as experts told OSV News, the two are intertwined.

Luz Tavarez, vice president of government relations for Catholic Charities USA, said the organization understands the difficulties legislators face as they attempt to balance the federal budget and reign in the deficit.

"We share a concern for the national debt and fiscal stability. But we also share a concern for the social safety net and programs that support the working poor and vulnerable," Tavarez emphasized. "And both things are in our best interest as a country."

"Finding savings and keeping our debt controlled is all well and good," Tavarez added. "We just can't do it at the risk of using programs that support the working poor."

The U.S. Treasury Department's Fiscal Data website educates Americans about the specifics of the national debt, which is, it notes, "composed of distinct types of debt, similar to an individual whose debt may consist of a mortgage, car loan, and credit cards."

America has been in debt since its inception, owing to $75 million worth of borrowing during the Revolutionary War.

The modern national debt, the Treasury Department says, "enables the federal government to pay for important programs and services for the American public."

Programs, Tavarez said, that are relied upon by the poor.

"We're all used to inflation, and we're all used to prices going up. But when those programs the government has put in place to help people bounce back are no longer there, then that becomes a crisis," she warned.

Goldwein at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, who also serves on an advisory council at the community charity Martha's Table, explained some of the wider technicalities of just how the national debt impacts the poor, apart from government program cuts. His organization estimates the true national debt increase from the Senate bill is north of $4 trillion.

"One is, higher debt slows income growth," Goldwein told OSV News. "There's an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office that rapidly rising debt can slow income growth by about a third, relative to stable debt. I'm not saying that's going to be exactly evenly distributed, but that's across incomes."

"It's not that incomes are going to go down -- but they're not going to grow as quickly. And so," he added, "that means less opportunity to get out of poverty; or less opportunity to have extra money to be able to build a nest egg, pass it on to the future generations; etc."

"Number two, higher debt pushes up interest rates," he said. "That matters if you have a credit card bill, if you have a car loan, if you're trying to pay for a washing machine on installment. It matters if you want to buy a home. It matters if you want to start a business. It matters if you want to go to college and need to get a student loan — all of these things, you pay higher interest rates. At the same time your wages are growing slower, you're paying more in interest costs."

"And then lastly," concluded Goldwein, "higher debt burdens the federal government with higher interest payments and a bigger debt load. And ultimately, that will need to be corrected -- through either taxes that are higher than they otherwise would be and lending that's lower than it otherwise would be, or some combination of the two."

"We can't predict the distribution of those changes," he said. "But I think if history is an indication, often it's the poor that will bear at least some of that burden."

Anthony Annett, an economist and author of "Cathnomics" (Georgetown University Press), likened the rising national debt to a blazing conflagration that legislators are making worse.

"It's basically saying, 'You know, there's a fire raging. Instead of putting out the fire, let's put some gasoline on the fire.' That's pretty much what they're doing."

"The budget deficit -- which adds to the debt every year -- is already at a very elevated level," explained Annett. "It's way too high. And this is going to make it worse."

Again according to the U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data website, "A deficit occurs when the federal government's spending exceeds its revenues. The federal government has spent $1.36 trillion more than it has collected in fiscal year (FY) 2025, resulting in a national deficit."

In order to operate with a deficit, "the federal government borrows money by selling U.S. Treasury bonds, bills, and other securities," adds the Treasury. "The national debt is the accumulation of this borrowing along with associated interest owed to investors who purchased these securities."

The clinical language of the Treasury website mutes a painful reality.

"The impact of that is that interest rates are going to go up," Annett said. "It becomes more expensive for the government to borrow money and it means that the burden of repaying that interest with higher interest rates consumes an ever-larger share of the budget. So," he added, "if you are paying more in interest payments -- which you are -- that means there's less leftover to pay for Social Security and Medicare and programs that benefit the poor. So all that is going to get squeezed out."

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops -- in a May 20 letter to Congress -- expressed deep concern over the proposed budget bill's cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, labeling the provisions "unconscionable and unacceptable."

The bishops' teaching in this area is longstanding. In their 1986 teaching document, "Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy," they said the "fundamental moral criterion for all economic decisions, policies, and institutions is this: They must be at the service of all people, especially the poor."

Among their guidelines was that the tax system "should be continually evaluated in terms of its impact on the poor." The document said the system should "raise adequate revenues to pay for the public needs of society," should be progressively structured so that those with "greater financial resources pay a higher rate of taxation" and "families below the official poverty line should not be required to pay income taxes." By definition, the bishops said, these families do not have "sufficient resources to purchase the basic necessities of life," and so should not have "the additional burden of paying income taxes."

Trump set a July 4 deadline for Congress to pass the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act." It advanced to debate in the Senate June 29 shortly after midnight in a 51-49 vote.