MAGA Senator Mocked for Embarrassing Budget Gaffe
Sen. Tim Scott claimed the Congressional Budget Office was providing economic estimates as far back as the 1930s.
MAGA Senator Tim Scott is being ridiculed after attacking the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for making “wrong” predictions decades before it even existed.
Scott, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, posted a video on X attacking the CBO, which recently estimated that 11 million people could lose health care and $2.4 trillion will be added to the deficit under President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which is currently under consideration in the Senate. Scott, who represents South Carolina, claimed the CBO had a long track record of bad predictions.
Sen. Tim Scott said the Congressional Budget Office had made bad predictions decades before it existed.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
“In 2017, the CBO said the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would increase the deficit and the debt by trillions of dollars. What happened? They were wrong,” Scott said.
“Now this is not surprising. They were wrong on the Mellon tax cuts in the 1930s. They were wrong on the Kennedy tax cuts in the 1960s. They were wrong on the Reagan tax cuts in the 1980s. When have they been right? I don’t know either.”
Scott concludes his message with “CBO: Wrong then, wrong now.”
One major problem: The CBO didn’t even exist until 1974, and the nonpartisan agency wasn’t operational until 1975.
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Scott has since been roundly mocked online.
Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia responded on X: “Republicans are attacking Congress’ nonpartisan scorekeeper, which found their Big Billionaire Boondoggle rips health care from 16 million people and adds $3 trillion to the deficit. Senator Tim Scott says CBO was ‘wrong’ in the 1930s and the 1960s … CBO was created in 1974.”
President Donald Trump touted his "big, beautiful" spending bill on Capitol Hill alongside Speaker of the House Mike Johnson in May. The Congressional Budget Office said the legislation would add $3.7 trillion to the national debt.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
“CBO did not exist until created by an act of Congress in 1974. Why does Tim Scott embarrass himself like this?” former CNN White House correspondent John Harwood wrote.
“CBO was right in 2017, they actually overestimated revenue collection in the 1980s, and they didn’t exist in the 1930s or 1960s,“ added Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “Other than that, no notes.”
Another X user piled on: “With Tim Scott, the question has always been whether he knows he’s lying or if he just doesn’t care.”
Scott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast.
Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is at risk of being defeated in the upper chamber as some GOP Senators have expressed their opposition to its proposals, including drastic cuts to Medicaid.
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