The ever-growing national debt has loomed threateningly over America’s economy for decades now. The House isn’t currently in session, but the Budget Committee still took its work addressing the issue on the road. Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, held a field hearing Monday in Dallas on “examining the need for a Fiscal Commission” to tackle the problem.
Monday’s hearing is proof that Capitol Hill is ground zero for more cases of amnesia than most soap operas, notably whenever Republicans hold control of the White House and Congress. The apparent memory loss affects dozens, if not hundreds, of GOP lawmakers at a time, blocking out any concern about the national debt. Previous efforts to reduce the debt are similarly tossed out the metaphorical window, lost to the ravages of time.
The apparent memory loss affects dozens, if not hundreds, of GOP lawmakers at a time, blocking out any concern about the national debt.
How convenient then for Republicans that this affliction appears to be lifting right as Democrats seem poised to wrestle control of the House, and potentially the Senate, in the upcoming midterms. (The massive deficits spawned under President Donald Trump and George W. Bush will undoubtedly remain obscured in their recollections.) Their memories partially restored, Republicans will be free to once again insist that Democrats must be the responsible party and only the responsible GOP can bring the out-of-control debt to heel — but only by slashing spending, of course, not raising taxes on the wealthy.
Arrington rightly noted that the debt crossed the $40 trillion threshold last month, making it more than ten times higher than in the early 1990s. The number is growing at an unfathomable rate, having hit $38 trillion last October, then $39 trillion in March. A yawning annual federal deficit of $2 trillion has been the driving factor, alongside unpaid interest on previous borrowing.
“No one party will unilaterally address the structural deficit that is driving our national debt,” Arrington said in his opening statement. “It’s going to require both parties to take this on. We have to work together, Democrats and Republicans. We have to bring the American people along.”
It’s the kind of sentiment that hearkens back to a bygone era in Washington when partisanship fell to the wayside in the face of major problems. But there are multiple issues with Arrington’s plea. First, as ranking member Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., pointed out, the proposed solution is one that has already been tried multiple times. (Boyle did agree though with Arrington’s overall point about needing some method of bringing the debt in line.)
Former President Barack Obama signed an executive order in 2010 to form the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. A year later, Congress established the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. But the former had no power to force Congress to take up its recommendations. The leaders of the latter were unable to reach a deal, as they lamented in a statement at the time: “After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline.”
The witnesses the committee heard from insisted though that this time would be different.
Unlike previous efforts, the legislation under discussion from Reps. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., and Scott Peters, D-Calif., would require the new commission to come up with a legislative package that Congress would be forced to vote on a strict timeline — rather than let languish. In other words, the negotiations would be offloaded to the new commission, but the final approval would still come down to the full House and Senate.
Arrington’s paeans to bipartisanship also sound deeply suspect after two years of his fellow Republicans completely ignoring the national debt’s climb
Arrington’s paeans to bipartisanship also sound deeply suspect after two years of his fellow Republicans completely ignoring the national debt’s climb in favor of making it much, much worse. The last time his committee passed a bill calling for a debt commission was in January 2024. At that time former President Joe Biden was in the White House and Democrats controlled the Senate. And yet, over the last two years when his fellow Republicans could make that bill a reality, there was silence on the matter — until now.
Republican leadership seemed unperturbed about the trillions in deficits that H.R. 1, widely known as the “one big, beautiful bill,” would foster during last year’s debate. There was likewise no mention of when Trump was first in office and the debt exploded by almost $4 trillion, in large part thanks to the tax cuts last year’s bill extended. The most recent times it had grown so quickly, according to The Washington Post, were also both under Republican presidents: at the start of the Great Recession in 2008 under former President George W. Bush, and in 1983, “when President Ronald Reagan was attempting to recover from a double-dip recession and spend the Soviets into oblivion.”
“No amount of enacted tax increases by my colleagues, no amount of spending cuts that I’ve participated in most recently, or pro-growth policies have collectively been enough to substantially stem the tide of our runaway mandatory spending,” Arrington said in his opening statement.
But while Democrats have been forced to mull major cuts to mandated spending programs like Medicare and Social Security, there’s been no similar spirt of compromise from Republicans on revenue. At no point in his remarks did the chair even admit that higher taxes might be required to end the current spiral.
Until that prospect is fully on the table, the timing of this new push feels like more of the same political positioning we’ve seen repeatedly from Republicans. There’s no denying that the debt’s current pace of growth is unsustainable. But fiscal responsibility can’t magically become a core pillar of the GOP’s guiding ethos only when Democrats are able to take the blame for failing to bring the debt and deficits in check.
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