The GOP’s Fiscal Hawk Era Is Officially Over |
There is no constituency for debt reduction, which is a fancy way of saying voters don’t care that the federal balance sheet is roughly $37 trillion in the red — and growing.
This simple fact of American politics goes a long way toward explaining why President Donald Trump, with the help of congressional Republicans, is pushing a sweeping reconciliation package of tax cuts and fresh domestic spending priorities that is projected to add approximately $3.8 trillion to the swelling federal debt. Politics is a service business and Trump and his Capitol Hill allies are aiming to please the customer.
So they’ve loaded up the reconciliation package, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, with a series of crowd-pleasers — expansions of existing tax breaks plus some brand-new ones.
Yes, there are spending cuts. The version of the legislation that passed in the House of Representatives and is now up for consideration in the Senate includes reductions to Medicaid and other budget line items. But there’s nothing in the bill that results in a net decrease in the debt. Even the proposed changes to Medicaid face an uncertain future, thanks to GOP opposition in the Senate.
That’s because the sort of substantial spending cuts and program reforms required to break Washington’s addiction to borrowing would be wildly unpopular. For instance, any meaningful attempt to balance the books probably requires both raising taxes and overhauling Medicare and Social Security. That’s not a recipe for winning elections.
As concerning as the US debt load is........