Today, the independent Congressional Budget Office released its score of the Senate’s bipartisan immigration bill, providing even more evidence that commonsense immigration reform is good for the budget and good for economic growth.

CBO estimates that fixing our broken immigration system will reduce federal deficits by about $200 billion over the next 10 years, and about $700 billion in the second decade. The CBO analysis made clear that the additional taxes paid by new and legalizing immigrants would not only offset any new spending, but would be substantial enough to reduce the deficit over the 20-year window. A significant portion of the new taxes would be paid by previously undocumented immigrants. While many of these workers already pay federal taxes, millions more will pay payroll taxes once they are able to obtain legal status and work above board.

CBO also found that commonsense immigration reform will increase real GDP by 3.3% in 2023, and 5.4% in 2033, a real increase of roughly $700 billion in 2023 and $1.4 trillion in 2033, due to higher labor force participation, increased capital investment, and increased productivity resulting from “technological advancements, such as new innovations and improvements in the production process.” 

CBO’s score follows other recent independent analyses which underscore that passing commonsense immigration reform is also one of the best, and often overlooked, ways to strengthen the solvency of the Social Security trust fund.

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Today, President Obama is in Northern Ireland for the G-8 Summit in Lough Erne. This year's G-8 is President Obama's fifth since taking office, and the second stop of his three-day trip to Northern Ireland and Germany.

President Barack Obama participates in a G8 Summit meeting on Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership in the Library at Lough Erne Resort in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, June 17, 2013. Participating in the meeting are, clockwise from President Obama: Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom; Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany; President François Hollande of France; Prime Minister Enrico Letta of Italy; Taoiseach Enda Kenny of Ireland: José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission; and Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Yesterday, following the first stop of the trip in Belfast, the President held a number of meetings with world leaders ahead of the G-8, including a visit with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and a meeting with EU leaders on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron talk at the G8 Summit in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, June 17, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Together with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, President Obama announced that the United States and the European Union would launch negotiations on the trade agreement in July. The partnership will boost economic growth in the United States and the EU, as President Obama explained.

[T]he U.S.-EU relationship is the largest in the world. It makes up nearly half of global GDP. We trade about $1 trillion in goods and services each year. We invest nearly $4 trillion in each other’s economies. And all that supports around 13 million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. 

And this potentially groundbreaking partnership would deepen those ties. It would increase exports, decrease barriers to trade and investment. As part of broader growth strategies in both our economies, it would support hundreds of thousands of jobs on both sides of the ocean.

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President Obama discussed a range of issues in his interview last night on PBS, but the National Security Agency was the topic for an extended part of the conversation.

"My job is both to protect the American people and to protect the American way of life, which includes our privacy," he said. "So every program that we engage in, what I've said is let's examine and make sure that we're making the right tradeoffs."

Watch that part of the exchange:

Watch the full interview here