CRFB Statement on Treasury Secretary’s Comments
Yesterday, on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” host Maria Bartiromo cited Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimates that the Supreme Court’s recent tariff decision would reduce revenue collection by $1.9 trillion through 2036, without a replacement, and asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent if new tariff authorities would be able to replace the revenue loss.
The Committee has argued that any lost revenue should be replaced through other sources of revenue or spending reductions.
In response to a question of whether new tariffs would replace all the lost revenue from the tariffs ruled illegal, Secretary Bessent attacked the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and their work saying “Maya MacGuineas should be ashamed” and “they should take the word responsible out of her organization’s name.” He then said as a result of the new tariff authorities that tariff revenue “will be unchanged this year and will be unchanged in the future.”
The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:
In a bit of an odd response, Secretary Bessent appeared to have the arguments somewhat backwards.
First, CRFB has repeatedly touted the fiscal effects of tariffs, pointing out that they have been generating meaningful new revenue – and this soaring revenue has been one bright spot in an otherwise gloomy fiscal picture.
Second, CRFB’s analysis showed that last week’s Supreme Court ruling would reduce that revenue collection by nearly $2 trillion through 2036, and argued that it should be replaced. This is not a controversial opinion – President Trump, Secretary Bessent, and others in the Administration have been pointing out the importance of this revenue for months. We are glad the Trump Administration is taking seriously the need to replace this lost revenue, and hope Congress will act to ensure a stable stream of revenue or alternative budgetary savings.
A simpler and more direct answer by the Secretary to Bartiromo’s question of whether new tariff authorities would be able to replace the revenue loss could have been “Yes” to which the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget would have said “Good”.
Finally, Secretary Bessent also questioned the Committee’s commitment to fiscal responsibility during the Biden Administration. We are used to hearing these arguments from both political parties whenever they don’t like our message (though in this case we were agreeing with the Administration). Year after year, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget pushes policymakers in both parties to put deficits and debt on a sustainable path, and to hold them accountable when they fail to do so. During the Biden Administration, we published over 200 pieces highlighting or criticizing excessive borrowing under the American Rescue Plan, Build Back Better, student debt cancellation, and other efforts and found that President Biden’s combined actions added well over $4 trillion to the debt. We issued similar critiques during the first Trump Administration, and before.
Ad hominem attacks won’t help us improve the fiscal trajectory – though the tariff revenue, or other replacements will. With debt approaching record levels as a share of the economy and interest payments surging past $1 trillion, we hope policymakers in both parties are ready to begin taking our budget deficits seriously. Doing so will require not only replacing lost tariff revenue, but pursuing significant additional spending cuts and/or revenue and bringing deficits down to at least 3% of GDP.
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For more information, please contact Matt Klucher, Assistant Director for Media Relations, at klucher@crfb.org.
