On July 23, 2019, while Washington and the media were fixated on special counsel Robert Mueller testifying before Congress, Kentucky Democrat, Rep. John Yarmuth introduced the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019. The bill would, for the fourth time in six years, blow through the spending caps put in place in 2011 that were the basis for a deal to raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion dollars at a time when the national debt was $8 trillion less than it is today.
This latest budget bill raises non-defense, discretionary spending levels by 4% and defense spending levels by 3% for the next fiscal year. These increases are happening despite inflation being at less than 2% and latest GDP growth numbers now just above 2%. The bill also suspends the debt ceiling, allowing our nation’s debt to climb above the current $22 trillion that our government owes to foreign countries, pension funds, banks, and Americans who have purchased U.S. Treasuries. Our carrying of this debt requires ever higher interest payments, nearly $400 billion this year, more than what we pay annually for Medicaid by 2020 and more than what we will pay yearly for defense by 2024.
In this context, with no hearings or markup of the bill in the House Budget Committee, and less than 48 hours after the bill was introduced, (despite House rules requiring a three-day notice period prior to a vote), it was brought to the floor. Per the procedural rule governing floor debate, there was only one hour of debate, and Republicans did not even bother to file the motion to recommit that they were allowed to file to try to amend the bill.
The House passed the budget bill with 219 Democrat and 65 Republican “yes” votes (132 Republicans voted no) and then adjourned for a six-week recess. Before adjourning, the House rejected the attempt by Rep. Thomas Massie’s attempt to rename the bill the “A Bill to Kick the Can Down the Road, and for Other Purposes.”
With the new spending levels in the 2019 budget bill, the country is set to return to the same trillion-dollar deficits that Republicans howled about in the Obama era. While Democrats will try to blame these deficits on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the real cause of our gigantic deficits is spending that is out of control and accelerating faster than either economic growth or inflation. A good part of that increased spending occurs automatically in the form of mandatory payments due to retirement (i.e., Social Security) and health (i.e., Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare) programs. It appears, however, that the discretionary part of the budget is now also on some form of automatic pilot, with Republican acquiescence, as this latest budget bill simply mimics the spending increases in the last several budget bills.
Although Congress is unlikely to follow through, there is an opportunity to put a stop to this recklessness this year. There is no requirement that the actual spending bills Congress passes for the next two fiscal years reach the levels authorized in this latest Bipartisan Budget Act. As President Trump likes to say, “we’ll see what happens,” but count me skeptical.
Congress and our budget process are in desperate need of reform, but we’ve been saying that for years. It is not right that a mere handful of senior legislators, i.e., “the leadership,” were the only ones with any substantive input on a bill that increases spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, especially when we are drowning in debt. This is no way to legislate. It is difficult to imagine what it will take to get Congress to implement the reforms necessary to get our fiscal house in order, but that day will come, and when it does people will ask, “Why wasn’t something done sooner?”
Keith Rothfus represented Pennsylvania’s Twelfth Congressional District between 2013 and 2019. He and his family live in Pennsylvania. He is on Twitter @KeithRothfus.
