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The level of blatant disregard we just witnessed for our nation’s fiscal condition and budget process is a failure of responsible governing. These are the very same lawmakers who for years have bemoaned the nation’s massive debt, voting to put another $4 trillion on the credit card.
The Senate took a bill that already borrowed way too much, and took it from bad to worse. The Senate expanded the House’s tax breaks, watered down its offsets, introduced new special interest giveaways, and added another trillion dollars onto the price tag.
The Senate bill would add $600 billion to the deficit in 2027 alone, push deficits above 7 percent of GDP, drive debt to new record highs, and accelerate the insolvency of Social Security and Medicare. Claims that it reduces the deficits rely on phony baselines, fantastical economic assumptions, and arbitrary expirations. If made permanent, the Senate bill would cost more than the CARES Act, the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS Act, combined.
The House should reject the Senate bill out of hand. It adds $1 trillion more to the debt than their bill, and violates their budget resolution framework by $600 billion or more.
The House reconciliation instructions require $2 trillion of spending cuts to unlock $4.5 trillion of tax cuts. The Senate bill appears to fall about $600 billion short – it only cuts spending by $1.4 trillion. Including higher spending on defense, immigration, and interest, it only cuts spending by $400 billion.
The Senate reconciliation bill fails almost every test of fiscal responsibility. Instead of worrying about arbitrary deadlines or sparing the Senate another vote-a-rama, fiscal conservatives should stand up for what’s right and reject the Senate plan to explode our debt.
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