Why Blake Moore says the ‘big beautiful bill’ won’t raise the national deficit

Rep. Blake Moore — Utah’s only member of Congressional leadership — is defending the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” arguing estimates about how much the massive spending bill backed by President Donald Trump would increase the country’s already ballooning deficit are incorrect.

Moore’s defense of the bill came during a spectacular public meltdown of the relationship between Trump and former adviser Elon Musk over the legislation, and as Sen. Mike Lee pushes for additional spending cuts as the budget bill moves through the Senate.

The bill passed the House by just a single vote last month. It includes, among other things, an extension on tax cuts passed during Trump’s first term, an expansion of the Child Tax Credit, a demand for increased state funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and reforms to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act that could put the health care of nearly 11 million Americans at risk, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The CBO has estimated that the bill, as currently constructed, would add $2.4 trillion to the national deficit, a figure that Lee says is unacceptable. Musk, meanwhile, called the bill “pork-filled” and “a disgusting abomination.”

But Moore argued in a recent interview that he thinks the CBO estimates are inaccurate, as he and some other members of the Republican caucus have argued that the tax cuts will trigger economic growth.

“There is $2.5 trillion of economic growth,” Moore said. “This is the difference between where you’ll get the CBO score and where you’ll get our score — and that’s where the argument needs to be had, because everything else is plain numbers. We’re assuming a 2.6% [gross domestic product] growth rate. The CBO assumes a lower GDP growth rate at 1.8%. We think they’re wrong.”

Moore acknowledged that even with the higher estimated growth rate the bill’s backers have been using, the bill is only “deficit neutral,” and that some in the GOP have said they won’t support the bill unless it actually reduces the deficit.

“Are we solving the deficit issue? No. I wish we were doing more to solve it,” he said. “Over four years of Republican control of the White House, House and Senate, I think you will see a significant focus on that.”

Moore’s comments came just one day after Lee and Musk had a back-and-forth on the Musk-owned social media platform X in which Musk described spending in the bill as “debt slavery for the American people,” a description with which Lee concurred.

Asked about the pair’s comments on the platform, Moore said, “Any back and forth on X isn’t a serious conversation, and it’s all for show. I wouldn’t take any real consideration into that. Those are more superficial and, I think, more hyperbolic.”

Lee’s office did not respond to a request for comment about whether the senator’s posts on the platform were serious or hyperbolic.

Moore said he has spoken with Lee, as well as Utah’s other U.S. senator, John Curtis, about the bill. He did not offer specifics about their conversations, but he did respond to Musk’s claims about the legislation.

The South African businessman, Moore said, is “parroting some of the same claims that I’m refuting with a very basic, very conservative 2.6% growth rate.” He added, “He’s had that explained to him. You can’t really predict why [or] what Elon is going to do, and it’s sometimes kind of all over the map.”

Moore, who serves as the co-chair of the Congressional DOGE caucus, also said he feels that Musk, who oversaw Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency until recently, doesn’t like the bill because it eliminates some tax credits the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has taken advantage of in the past.

“He’s probably not thrilled about a lot of the green energy tax credits that are going to be removed in this,” Moore said. “He’s taking advantage of EV tax credits and … there’s probably some concern there on his part. It’s hard to predict what he does on a lot of things, but this is a case where you see him and the president disagreeing, and ultimately, disagreement is okay. But I just keep going back to the facts: This is a strong bill.”

In recent days, some Republican members of the House have said they were unaware of some provisions in the bill they had voted on, including one that would make it more difficult for judges to hold people in contempt and one that would ban states from regulating AI for the next decade.

Moore noted that eleven House committees worked on the bill, and said he was concerned about the late addition of the AI provision, but said, “I’m not going to defund the entire military over this.”

“I voted on many things that I actually had very a lot of confidence would come out once they go through conferencing and they go through the Senate,” he added. “That’s the nature of the legislative process here. That’s why it exists.”

The bill now awaits a vote in the Senate, where significant changes are expected before it can garner enough votes to pass the chamber. Trump has asked for the bill on his desk by July 4.