WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday dismissed Moody’s downgrade of the U.S. sovereign credit rating, as the Republican-controlled Congress tried to push ahead on President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut bill.
Bessent, in a pair of television interviews, said the bill’s provisions extending the 2017 tax cuts passed under Trump’s first term would spur economic growth that would outpace what the nation owed, even as nonpartisan analysts warn the measure it would add trillions to the federal government’s $36.2 trillion in debt.
“I don’t put much credence in the Moody’s” downgrade, Bessent told CNN’s “State of the Union” program.
The House of Representatives Budget Committee on Friday rejected the bill, with a handful of Republican hardliners saying they were concerned it did not sufficiently cut spending.
House Speaker Mike Johnson separately said on Sunday the chamber is still “on track” to pass the bill. The committee is set to try again in a rare Sunday night hearing, set to begin at 10 p.m. ET (0200 GMT Monday).
“We’ve had lots of conversations. We’ll have more today,” Johnson said on “Fox News with Shannon Bream” when asked about hard-line Republicans Chip Roy and Ralph Norman demanding more spending cuts.
Congressional Republicans in 2017 also argued that the tax cuts would pay for themselves by stimulating economic growth. But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the changes increased the federal deficit by just under $1.9 trillion over a decade, even when including positive economic effects.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Scott Malone)
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