Warren, King, Kaine, Whitehouse Highlight Trump Administration Hypocrisy on National Debt While It Guts IRS, Pushes Giant Tax Cuts for Billionaires
Trump Admin plans to slash IRS funding would balloon federal deficit, result in $2.4 trillion in lost revenue over next decade
“The Administration’s signature tax priorities—gutting the IRS and passing significant tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy—will massively drive up the deficit and place a greater burden on future generations.”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Angus King (I-Maine), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Billy Long regarding the hypocrisy of their claims that they want to cut the deficit while simultaneously slashing the IRS workforce and cutting taxes for the ultra-wealthy.
In June last year, Secretary Bessent said he was “alarmed by the size of [the government’s] deficit,” and publicly championed a plan to cut the annual deficit from 6.4 percent of GDP to three percent. In an interview in April, Deputy Treasury Secretary Faulkender reiterated that the Administration’s intent is to “bring the deficit down.” When pressed by Senators in written questions, Secretary Bessent affirmed his commitment to lowering the deficit to three percent of GDP by the end of President Trump’s term.
However, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, an extension of the 2017 Republican tax bill, also known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, would add $52 trillion to the national debt over the next 30 years, adding more debt to the nation’s balance sheet in three decades than ever before.
Additionally, earlier this year, the Trump administration began reductions in force at the IRS, including a plan to reduce IRS employee headcount by 40 percent. Tens of thousands of workers have left the agency since President Trump’s inauguration. The IRS division that audits billionaires and the ultra-wealthy has already lost 38 percent of its employees and had its funding rescinded by President Trump and Congressional Republicans. Even before these massive layoffs, IRS audits were already at a 23-year low.
Treasury Secretary Bessent last week took a victory lap, touting increased IRS revenue in the most recent filing season — but planned mass layoffs at the IRS did not go into effect until after the post-filing season, meaning the impacts of significant Trump Admin staffing cuts are not reflected in revenue for the 2025 season. The planned layoffs, spearheaded by Bessent, will kneecap the agency’s ability to do its basic job. If IRS staffing levels are nearly halved, as the Administration has promised, these cuts could drive up the deficit and lead to $2.4 trillion in lost revenue over the next decade.
“Further cutting IRS staff means less staff to monitor wealthy tax cheats and collect the tax revenue that will help offset our budget deficit,” wrote the lawmakers.
Continued layoffs will also significantly damage the agency’s customer service capacity. When reductions in force began at the IRS this spring, personnel essential to the tax filing season operations were required to continue working until mid-May, which limited the impact of staffing losses on tax revenue for the 2025 season. But the continuing layoffs at the IRS will kneecap the agency’s ability to do its basic job.
“These actions are inconsistent with your public commitments to meaningfully reduce the federal deficit and will undo the improvements made to the IRS’s taxpayer services,” the lawmakers concluded.
The senators requested an explanation for the administration’s cuts to the IRS and the agency’s plans to retain adequate levels of customer service by June 30, 2025.
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