More Borrowing Will Hurt Competitiveness

This week, the Senate is moving forward on a compromise “chips-plus” economic competitiveness bill. Though there is not yet a score from the Congressional Budget Office, press reports indicated that it would add roughly $75 billion to the debt through funding for microprocessor chips and an investment credit for microchip manufacturing facilities. The bill also includes a large amount of authorizations, which could lead to even higher deficits if appropriation levels are increased as a result. There is currently no discussion of offsets.

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

While the objectives of the bipartisan economic competitiveness bill are admirable, we should all be able to agree that more debt does not enhance our competitiveness. This bill should be paid for.

At this time, we don’t even know how much the bill costs because there isn’t a CBO score. Once again, lawmakers appear to be on the verge of voting to move a bill forward before they even know what it costs.

There are plenty of options to offset the costs, and doing so would improve the fiscal, inflationary and competitiveness effects. But we can’t compete with China by going further into debt with them.

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For more information, please contact Kim McIntyre, Director of Media Relations, at mcintyre@crfb.org