With House Republicans heading out for six weeks of vacation, it’s a good time to reflect on the most pathetic GOP-controlled Congress ever. More ominously, they have refused to cut even a penny of spending and have, in fact, increased the budget from its record levels during their tenure. Clearly, they have no appetite to cut spending even if Donald Trump retakes the White House. Republicans should stop talking about curbing inflation because it’s not happening.
Every Republican running for re-election decries “Bidenflation.” Household wealth, measured in U.S. dollars, has declined by 25% since COVID. However, they fail to mention that many of them actually increased spending from COVID levels instead of cutting it.
Republicans took a record baseline of spending that has triggered a crisis-level debt and inflation bubble and raised the bar even higher.
The reason we have record inflation is that the Federal Reserve is printing money to service the debt. Interest on the debt now averages over $1 trillion a year, leading to a record level of treasury auctions at increasingly higher interest rates to service swelling deficits. At the current rate, we will spend $3 trillion a year in interest on the debt by 2030, nearly as much as we’re projected to take in from all income tax revenue. Without a commitment to reduce spending, any talk of shrinking inflation is futile and dishonest.
After the greatest spending binge and the worst year of inflation in American history, House Republicans gained power in 2023 with a mandate to cut spending and roll back the Green New Deal. Conservatives were concerned that Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), known for giving Democrats everything they wanted on must-pass bills even when Republicans controlled the trifecta, would squander their leverage. They launched a rebellion to replace him as speaker but were pressured to back down before finishing the job. This led to the debt ceiling sellout, where McCarthy gave Biden a blank check for the remainder of his presidency.
The result? The debt has increased by $3.5 trillion since May 2023, topping $35 trillion this week, all without an official recession.
One silver lining to the debt ceiling bill was its creation of a dynamic where, if a full budget was not passed into law by April 2024, an automatic $72 billion in spending cuts to non-defense discretionary spending would occur. In other words, Republicans didn’t have to fight for extraneous policy riders to cut spending. Simply passing a continuing resolution for fiscal year 2024 — a clean bill — would have resulted in free spending cuts. Instead, in a series of sellouts on important bills, the new House speaker, Mike Johnson (R-La.), gave Democrats everything they wanted and canceled the impending cut he would have gotten for free.
After selling out on the budget, including on border issues, Johnson proceeded to give Democrats everything they wanted with the National Defense Authorization Act and everything Biden demanded on FISA reauthorization. Once Johnson gave Democrats everything they desired on those critical bills, what was left to do? He gave away the store on a supplemental spending bill that never needed to pass. Johnson passed more than $100 billion in foreign aid, mainly for Ukraine but also for Hamas (in addition to Israel). Did he at least demand border security as the price for passing the Democrats’ priority? Of course not. We got absolutely nothing in return.
Republicans took a record baseline of spending that has triggered a crisis-level debt and inflation bubble and raised the bar even higher.
Apologists for Johnson, Trump, and the current iteration of the GOP defend their record as the best we can do with “a slim majority.”
Which brings us to the appropriation bills for the 2025 fiscal year, which percolated through Congress before they decided to leave town. Last week, the House voted on the energy and water appropriations bill, which actually increased spending by $1 billion, and the interior and environment bill, which only cut 0.2% from record spending levels. Conservatives attempted to cut small, wasteful programs, including market-distorting green energy programs. In a series of votes, a consistent 60 to 80 Republicans voted against even these minor spending cuts.
It’s quite evident we will never have a majority large enough to actually cut a dime from the federal government, much less to downsize government to the point of making a dent in the inflation leviathan. Take the arts and humanities, for example. These are programs Republicans promised to cut since the Contract with America in 1994. Yet, 68 Republicans felt it was too extreme to even trim those programs back to 2019 levels!
Republicans are never as righteous as when they are locked out of the White House. These bills are never going anywhere, and these are tiny programs nobody cares about. If Republicans can’t muster more than 150 votes to trim these programs, do you really think they are going to trim welfare programs and abolish entire agencies when they are on the hook to govern for real?
Republicans will not change because we have failed to change the Republican Party. On that list of Republicans voting for all spending at all costs are members who were up for re-election but breezed through their primaries, often (unfortunately) with Trump’s endorsement. And remember, Senate Republicans are even more liberal.
So, good luck getting any meaningful spending cuts passed even through budget reconciliation. That is the one chance to pass legislation without facing a filibuster, but Republicans are unlikely to win more than 51 or 52 seats. There are easily anywhere from 15 to 20 Republicans who would never support spending cuts, and this is after they plan a series of tax cuts and increases in military spending, which, policy prudence aside, will only further aggravate the debt-driven inflation.
It’s now understandable why Republicans purged any mention of the debt from their new party platform. Maybe they should just be honest and remove it from their campaign rhetoric as well.
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