Sununu backed bills that added trillions to debt and deficit

Republican John Sununu says he wants to lower the national debt despite consistently backing policies that made it grow.

Sununu said tackling the debt was a top priority in a recent ad for his U.S. Senate campaign in New Hampshire. He previously served in the Senate from 2003 to 2009 and has stressed the importance of cutting the national deficit as well.

“People definitely want to see us cut the deficit,” he said in March. “Every year we need to make sure we’re doing the right things: keep the economy growing, control spending, and keep that deficit going down.”

Last year, however, Sununu endorsed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), the sweeping tax law that primarily benefits wealthy people and big corporations. He said on multiple occasions that the law would lower the deficit and not add substantially to the debt, dismissing claims to the contrary as “liberal math.”

This is not accurate. A review by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that OBBB would add an estimated $3.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. A Bipartisan Policy Center analysis says the law will add more than $4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, including interest costs.

Sununu was also supportive of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), a similar law enacted during President Donald Trump’s first term. He wrote in a CNBC op-ed that the law would “help America’s businesses compete and win.”

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimated that TCJA would add $1.5 trillion to the deficit by 2034.

Sununu is financially invested in several industries that received direct benefits from these laws, most notably oil and gas. OBBB gave fossil fuel producers billions in new government subsidies, while TCJA allowed them to expand drilling operations into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Sununu has up to $50,000 invested in ExxonMobil and up to $65,000 in Shell.

A similar dynamic is at play with big pharmaceutical companies. OBBB exempted several drugs from Medicare’s price negotiation program, which allows the government to broker costs for certain medications. The Congressional Budget Office says the government will pay an extra $5 billion to drug manufacturers as a result.

This builds on TCJA, which collectively cut taxes for the pharmaceutical industry by $6 billion.

Sununu holds up to $425,000 in pharmaceutical company stocks and bonds, including sizable stakes in Pfizer and Merck.

In 2001, when Sununu was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, he voted for the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act. Two years later, he supported the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act. These laws, collectively known as the Bush tax cuts, disproportionately benefitted the top 1% of earners.

The laws were projected to add $1.7 trillion to the deficit.

Sununu’s return to the Senate has been endorsed by Trump. He will face Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in November.