2 claim verifications about Congressional Budget Office Congressional Budget Office ×
“Tax cuts pay for themselves through economic growth by generating sufficient additional tax revenue to offset the initial revenue loss.”
The overwhelming weight of high-authority economic research directly contradicts this claim. Post-TCJA analyses from Brookings, Penn Wharton, and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget consistently find that the 2017 tax cuts reduced federal revenues by hundreds of billions of dollars, with growth-driven feedback offsetting only 4.5% to 22% of the cost — nowhere near the 100% required for self-financing. Even sources sympathetic to supply-side economics acknowledge that full self-financing is rare and context-dependent, not a general rule.
“Annual US interest payments on the national debt exceed the total US defense budget.”
Under standard federal budget definitions, this claim is accurate. In FY2025, net interest on the national debt (~$970 billion) exceeded national defense outlays (~$917-919 billion), according to U.S. Treasury data, the American Action Forum, and the Peterson Foundation. This milestone was first reached in FY2024. However, the claim's phrasing is imprecise: if "total defense budget" is interpreted to include broader defense-related spending (VA, homeland security, DOE nuclear programs), the comparison could narrow or reverse. The standard reading supports the claim.