CBO Confirms: Biden’s Biggest Executive Actions Come with $532 Billion Price Tag
WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Budget Committee Republican Leader Jason Smith (MO-08) issued the following statement after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) – in a response to a request from Smith – provided budgetary analysis of several executive actions taken by President Biden that combined will cost taxpayers $532* billion: “It turns out even with one-party Democrat control of Congress, President Biden has found a way to secretly spend hundreds of billions of dollars all by himself. With the stroke of a pen, President Biden has racked up at least $532 billion on the American taxpayers’ tab with zero input from their elected Representatives in Congress. Bizarrely, the same President Biden that has unilaterally and illegally refused to spend $1.4 billion in funding that was passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress to build a border wall to combat illegal immigration has at the same time spent over 375 times that amount on actions that Congress never authorized or appropriated. The enormous price tag speaks to how far President Biden wants to expand Washington command and control over education and health care while rolling back immigration enforcement. It is amazing that this is the same White House that continues to claim they are reducing the deficit.” CBO’s analysis provided the following cost projections for these Biden executive actions:
- $300 billion for expanding welfare by enlarging the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit
- $34 billion for expanding Obamacare and enrolling more Americans in Washington-controlled health care plans
- $85 billion for continuing a pandemic-era student loan payment moratorium benefitting higher income earners
- $3 billion for canceling the student loan debts of 40,000 borrowers**
- $20 billion for ending the Trump Administration’s public charge restrictions on immigration which protected taxpayers from awarding welfare benefits to immigrants
- $11 billion cost to taxpayers from eliminating strengthened work requirements in SNAP for able-bodied adults without dependents***
- $3 billion in additional Medicaid spending by prohibiting states from establishing work requirements in their Medicaid programs
- $7 billion for raising the wages for federal contractors
Today’s analysis by CBO also comes at a time when the Biden Administration is reportedly looking to spend an estimated $230 billion – without Congressional authorization or input – by cancelling $10,000 worth of student loan debt for American households that earn as much $300,000 per year. Student loan debt cancellation primarily benefits wealthier households:
- 62% of Americans do not hold a college degree
- Nearly 1/3 of student loan debt is held by the top 20% of earners
- 56% of student debt is held by households with graduate degrees
- 59% percent of households making $120,000 per year or more have student loan debt
- 2% = the unemployment rate among college graduates with a bachelor’s degree
Click here or on the image below to read House Budget Committee Republican’s one-page cost estimate of Biden’s executive spending. 
*Includes additional $69 billion of debt interest payments resulting from Biden’s executive actions ** Calculation from Department of Education data ***Official cost estimate, U.S. Department of Agriculture, December 2019
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