Overview
- The Wall Street Journal op-ed by Phil Gramm and Michael Solon, published Tuesday, argues the administration’s expanded tariffs now outweigh tax savings from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the 2025 tax-cut law.
- They cite CBO projections for 2026 that tariffs will raise about $331 billion while the tax cuts will save roughly $230 billion, which they say leaves families and businesses worse off and could hurt Republicans in the midterms.
- For 2025, the authors point to JCT estimates of about $188 billion in reduced tax liability from the law versus roughly $195 billion in tariff revenue that analyses find was largely passed on to U.S. buyers.
- Research they reference shows near full pass-through of tariffs to prices, including a New York Fed finding of 100 percent pass-through and a CBO estimate that consumers pay about 70 percent of the costs.
- They add that if tariffs are restored to pre–Supreme Court levels after a February decision, the 2026 tariff burden would be about 44 percent larger than the new tax cuts.