J.D. Vance Says Immigrants Will 'Bankrupt' the Federal Government. The Opposite Is True.
Vance cast the tie-breaking vote for a bill that will add $4 trillion to the debt. Meanwhile, immigrants are helping to keep the federal government's fiscal house of cards propped up.
Hours before he cast the tie-breaking vote on a major tax and spending bill in the Senate, Vice President J.D. Vance attempted to reframe the debate over the legislation.
Instead of thinking about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) as a matter of fiscal policy that's primarily aimed at extending the 2017 personal income tax cuts, Vance said lawmakers should see it as a crucial piece of the Trump administration's ongoing immigration enforcement efforts.
The fiscal policy debate—including big details like how much the bill adds to the deficit and how Republicans are trying to hide those consequences—is "immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions," Vance wrote on X. "The thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy is flooding the country with illegal immigration and then giving those migrants generous benefits. The OBBB fixes this problem. And therefore it must pass."
Vance's claim is factually wrong—more on that in just a moment—but it is also telling.
The debate over the OBBBA has revealed (once again) that the uniting principle in Republican politics is not fiscal responsibility. The bill that passed the Senate on Tuesday afternoon, with Vance as the tie-breaking vote, will add nearly $4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. It is not, under any circumstances, a fiscally responsible piece of legislation.
Instead, the fulcrum for conservative politics is—and for quite some time has been, even before Vance and President Donald Trump rose to prominence—immigration. If you want to keep the GOP coalition together for a tough vote, it makes more sense to pitch the bill as an immigration measure.
Vance understands this. He also understands that the facts don't really matter when conservatives are talking about immigration within their own tribe.
Indeed, he's completely wrong about "the thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy."
It's not immigrants who are doing that. It's Congress.
It is Congress that has approved omnibus bill after cromnibus bill for the past two decades, without regard for deficits, borrowing, and the huge pile of national debt that has resulted from them. It is Congress that has repeatedly kicked the can down on the road when it comes to America's old-age entitlement programs, which are the fastest-growing part of the budget and are facing a reckoning. And it is Congress that is passing this new tax and spending bill that will continue the cycle of reckless borrowing to fund political priorities instead of giving Americans as much government as they are willing to pay for.
Immigrants, on the other hand, are helping to keep this whole fiscal house of cards propped up.
Higher levels of immigration boost America's economy and help reduce long-term budget deficits. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office reported that "higher net immigration" would help create $7 trillion in greater economic output over the next decade, resulting in tax revenues that "will be greater by about $1 trillion than they would have been otherwise."
As I wrote at the time, this isn't exactly rocket science. More workers equals more economic output and more growth, which in turn leads to more tax revenue to help offset some of the federal government's seemingly insatiable appetite for spending. That's in line with what other studies have found too. More legal immigration grows the economy, helps fund government programs, and doesn't strain entitlement or welfare programs.
When it comes to Social Security, in particular, illegal immigrants contribute but do not benefit from the program. "In 2022, people without a documented status paid an estimated $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes," reports the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration is costly in more ways than one. The government is spending more on immigration enforcement—including the $168 billion in new spending in the bill the Senate just passed, which Vance apparently sees as the most important component of the package. And booting immigrants, even illegal ones, out of the country will have other fiscal consequences. Social Security could go insolvent even more quickly, for example.
If you want to be serious about fiscal responsibility, kicking immigrants out of the country is not the way to do it. Instead, lawmakers should be focused on providing more legal pathways for immigrants to come to America, earn a living, and pay taxes to support the federal government's wobbly finances.
Vance's false claims about immigration and the budget deficit might work as a matter of practical politics, but they really only demonstrate how fundamentally unserious Republicans have become about fiscal responsibility and the consequences of their own immigration crackdown.
