Congress is engaged in an epic battle over the proper approach to border security and how to send military aid to allies. A big issue being lost in the debate is that all these ideas cost money, yet politicians don’t care about find cuts to existing programs to pay for the new spending.

Although the policy debates are important, nobody is fighting to slash existing spending to pay for all these new expensive ideas.

Years ago, when I was counsel to Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), I remember a leadership staffer telling me that the moment the federal government runs a deficit, the size of that number will not matter to Congress or the executive branch. They would run up the numbers, he said, because they do not care whether the deficit is $2 billion or $2 trillion. In their eyes, a deficit is a deficit.

Unfortunately, that staffer was spot on. In fiscal 2000, the federal government ran a $240 billion surplus. But once the federal government started to run small deficits in 2001, politicians stopped caring about the size. This year, the deficit is roughly $2 trillion.

Currently, Congress is debating supplemental ideas to fund border security and tens of billions in foreign aid.........

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