President Donald Trump promised Americans a balanced budget during a speech before a joint session of Congress Tuesday, but he could face challenges delivering on that pledge.
Trump has said he wants a balanced budget several times since taking office, but his promise to extend the tax cuts in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act could make that difficult for both the House and Senate. Extending the tax rates could cost about $4 trillion, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office.
In the past 50 years, the federal government has ended with a fiscal year-end budget surplus four times, most recently in 2001. Congress has run a deficit every year since then.
After Trump’s speech, House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, said the House budget will put the U.S. “on a path to balance.”
“House Republicans have done their part by passing the [fiscal year 2025] Budget Resolution that advances President Trump’s full economic and security agenda, while putting our nation on a path to balance,” he said in a statement. “The House Budget resolution is more than numbers on a ledger, it’s a promissory note to the American people and our children to preserve the American Dream against an unwieldy government.”
Arrington’s House budget bill isn’t balanced. The House has proposed a $4.5 trillion bill that extends the tax cuts brokered during Trump’s first term in office. The House proposal would allow $2.8 trillion in deficit increases through 2034. The Senate has proposed a fully offset $342 billion Senate bill that leaves the tax cuts for a later date.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, called it a “mockery.”
“At this point, it seems lawmakers are making a mockery of the budget process,” she said. “It’s not just that they miss the occasional deadline, they don’t make a single one. They race ahead to pass tax cuts without putting a real budget in place. They borrow for new spending and tax cuts, when what the nation needs is a debt reduction plan.”
Trump has suggested that revenue from his tariffs could bring in enough revenue to offset federal spending policies, but outside groups, including the the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, have questioned that.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated Trump’s tariffs could bring in revenue, but likely not enough to cover his spending plans, which could cost up to $11 trillion. CRFB estimated Trump’s tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada could raise $1.3 trillion through fiscal year 2035 on a conventional basis. Accounting for economic effects, CRFB estimated the combined tariffs (both the enacted and delayed) would raise $1.3 trillion through 2035.
Complicating matters, Trump’s plan for tariffs hasn’t fully materialized, making budget projections more difficult.
So far, only one Republican has opposed the House budget. U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., told USA Today that the House budget isn’t the answer.
“We have no plan whatsoever to balance the budget other than growth, but what they’re proposing is to make the deficit worse,” Massie said.
More recently, Massie pointed out that Republicans are applauding cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency, but still plan to fund those same cuts in the coming budget.
“Congress just stood up and applauded DOGE for exposed wasteful and fraudulent programs that Congress itself funded … and plans to fund in the coming [continuing resolution],” he wrote on X after the president’s address.
