USAID Costs $40 Billion A Year. GOP Tax Cuts Could Total $11 Trillion Over A Decade.

Republicans readily admit the revenue loss from their tax proposals will be far larger than the spending cuts they’re envisioning.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is demolishing the U.S. Agency for International Development as part of a broader quest to slash federal spending, but the $40 billion saved by cutting foreign aid is a drop in the bucket next to the tax cuts Republicans are planning.

House Republicans are getting ready to unveil a package of tax and spending cuts that could widen the federal budget deficit by trillions of dollars over the next decade, including cutting taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security payments and extending the GOP’s 2017 tax cut law.

GOP lawmakers readily admit the revenue loss from their tax proposals will be far larger than the spending cuts they’re envisioning, but they insist that rapid economic growth will boost federal receipts enough to make up the difference.

“There will be a lot of economic growth. And if you think about what happened in 2017 — dramatic economic growth, possibly even more this time,” Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the No. 2 Republican in the House, told HuffPost on Friday.

What happened in 2017 is that a Republican tax cut bill signed into law by President Donald Trump in his first term was projected by the Congressional Budget Office to lose more than $1 trillion in revenue. Receipts have come in higher than expected, though the CBO said in December the increase is mostly due to inflation that started in 2021.