GOP's Paul blasts megabill over debt hikes: 'Nothing beautiful about that'
"I think a bill can be big or it could be beautiful. But I don't know if it could be both," Musk said in the clip.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Thursday had harsh words for the GOP's "big beautiful bill" in light of what he insisted would be a $4 trillion increase in the debt.
The fiscal hawk has previously criticized the GOP's penchant for ramming through colossal legislative vehicles in place of the 12 annual appropriations bills. In his latest remarks, he said that "[t]he House’s version of the One Big Beautiful Bill would explode the debt by $4 trillion, undermining all the cuts [DOGE] has made. There’s nothing beautiful about that."
Paul made the comments in response to a clip of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Chief Elon Musk criticism the bill as well.
"I think a bill can be big or it could be beautiful. But I don't know if it could be both," Musk said in the clip.
White House crypto-czar David Sacks weighed into the debate on X as well, highlighting that the bill did cut spending, but that the Congressional Budget Office counted hypothetical lost revenue in a way that made it look as though it did not.
"BBB does actually cut spending. It’s just not scored that way because the bill removes the sunset provision from the 2017 tax cuts," he said. "In other words, the bill *continues* tax rates that have been in place since January 1, 2018 but CBO scores this as a spending increase because those rates would have expired on December 31, 2025. If you use the current year as a baseline, as common sense would tell you to do, BBB represents a cut in net spending."