Sponsors (21)
The bill increases fiscal transparency and improves lawmakers' information by counting public-debt servicing costs in official scorekeeping, but it adds complexity for scorekeepers and may raise projected costs in ways that could reduce enacted benefits or worsen deficits.
Federal lawmakers and budget decision-makers will get more accurate fiscal-impact information because CBO and JCT will include public-debt servicing costs in legislative scorekeeping, improving the quality of fiscal policy analysis.
Taxpayers and the general public will receive more complete and transparent federal cost estimates because official scores will reflect interest and other debt‑service costs when evaluating proposals.
Taxpayers could face fewer enacted programmatic benefits or higher deficits if including debt‑service costs raises projected costs of proposals and shifts budget choices away from spending or toward borrowing.
CBO, JCT, and other federal budget staff will face added complexity and workload from calculating and incorporating debt‑service estimates, which could slow score preparation or require more resources.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Directs CBO and JCT to include, when practicable, public debt servicing costs in their congressional cost estimates.
Amends the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to require the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to include, to the extent practicable, the costs of servicing the public debt when preparing budget cost estimates. It also adds a clerical table-of-contents entry for the new provision. The change affects how budgetary cost estimates present debt service costs and directs the Director of CBO and JCT to account for those costs where practicable; the bill does not set funding, specific methods, or deadlines.
Introduced February 5, 2025 by Michael Cloud · Last progress February 5, 2025