Fact-check three key claims about Trump’s Big Bill

President Donald Trump’s flagship legislation (he called the “Great Act”) faces major opposition from Democrats and some Republicans.

It has been in intense negotiations about the quality it may cost and the question of the proposed cuts to certain U.S. welfare programs.

Elon Musk also imposed a trade-off that would repeatedly threaten to form a new party if the “crazy spending bill passes”.

The BBC has validated claims about the possible impact of the bill in three key areas of national finance, health insurance and taxation.

The White House said the bill “reduces the deficit by $2 trillion” – but senior Democrats insist that it will actually add trillions of dollars.

The BBC verified various independent studies on the impact of the bill and interviewed six tax experts, all agreeing that it would increase the national deficit.

A deficit is when the U.S. government spends more than it collects through taxes and other forms of income.

Musk criticized lawmakers for “voting for the largest debt increase in history” when they passed the U.S. Senate.

Debt is the overall sum of what the government owes – essentially a build-up of past budget deficits – meaning it has to borrow money and pay interest for it.

U.S. national debt is currently around 36tn (£26), of which about 29tn is the money the government owes to investors around the world.

In theory, a larger deficit and greater debt can lead to higher interest rates – the idea is that as these countries rise, investors are more worried about a country’s ability to repay debt, so they need higher interest payments.

For consumers, this can enable higher interest rates to lower prices like homes and cars and limit business investments, thus limiting productivity and jobs.

According to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the current version of the bill estimates that a deficit of about 3.3tn (2.4tn) over the next 10 years, an estimate of the independent analysis of spending by government agencies.

The CBO said the proposed spending cuts in the bill would outweigh the tax cuts.

An analysis by the Tax Foundation think tank concluded that the bill “will increase economic output but increase the deficit.” It predicts that the bill will increase U.S. GDP levels by about 1% in 10 years, but will also increase by 3.6tn (2.6tn) in the deficit during the same period.

Some banks say they favor the bill – the American Bankers Association wrote an open letter to lawmakers saying it provided “a much-needed tax break” that would boost the economy.

Experts verified by the BBC have verified the talk that while the bill may offer some economic growth, its cost will significantly outweigh the increase.

“Most analysis found that the bill would produce a smaller, temporary, brief boost – but over time, the bill will actually hinder the economy,” said Bobby Kogan, a federal budget expert at the Center for Progress at the Nonpartisan Policy Institute.

“This will lead to a persistent large-scale budget deficit and a high debt burden,” said Mark Zandi, an economist at the analysis of financial consulting firm Moody.

“We cut $1.7 trillion in this bill and you don’t feel anything. Your Medicaid is one person. It’s the same,” Trump claimed in an event on the bill last week.

However, various studies have shown that Medicaid will be greatly reduced under the bill.

Medicaid is a government-operated program that provides medical insurance to approximately 71 million low-income adults, children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with disabilities.

Analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), an independent health policy research group, found that the bill would cut 1 TN (£72.9 billion) from future Medicaid spending over the next 10 years.

The White House said the bill “deletes illegal foreigners, enforces job requirements, and protects those who are truly vulnerable to Medicaid.”

The General Office estimates that nearly 12 million Americans will lose health insurance under the terms of the Senate bill — only 1.4 million of them “have no verified citizenship, nationality or satisfactory immigration status.”

“The largest Medicaid cuts in U.S. history are the first year of President Reagan’s tenure …these Medicaid cuts are at least four times the scale,” Mr. Kogan said.

Trump has repeatedly said that failing to pass the bill would lead to a massive tax increase for Americans – in part because the tax cuts he passed during his first term will expire at the end of this year.

“If you don’t get approval, your taxes will increase by 68%.” The president said last week.

We asked the White House about the calculations behind Trump’s claims – they replied that the bill “blocked the biggest tax in history” but did not answer our questions about where the specific numbers came from.

The Tax Policy Center estimates that not expanding the tax cuts introduced by Trump in 2017 will result in an average increase of 7.5%.

The agency also said about 60% of taxpayers must contribute more when they expire.

“The 68% figure is incorrect … It may be roughly drawn from the number of taxpayers, and taxpayers will see an increase in taxes rather than an estimate of the actual increase in taxes,” said Elena Patel, an assistant professor at the University of Utah Business School.

Overall, tax changes in the bill will benefit wealthy Americans from wealthy Americans, according to the Center for Tax Policy Analysis. It found that about 60% of the benefits would go to people over $217,000 (£158,000).

“The bill will undoubtedly lead to the redistribution of the poorest to the richest,” Ms Patel said.