I opposed the last debt ceiling plan in the House because it raised the national debt by $1.5 trillion over a few months, but the deal that Speaker McCarthy has made with President Biden is an even bigger disaster.
The original bill that passed out of the House last month promised fiscal year 2022 spending levels with a savings of approximately $131 billion and rescissions of almost $900 billion.
The McCarthy-Biden plan nets only $9 billion in savings and only $29 billion in rescissions. And there is the likelihood that the savings totally go away, and the bill indicates that $22 billion of the rescissions will be repurposed to get around the putative spending caps in the bill.
The McCarthy-Biden plan blows up the debt ceiling from the already outrageous national debt of $31.4 trillion to a more treacherous national debt of $36 trillion by January 1, 2025.
But the McCarthy-Biden deal is designed to fool you. Instead of estimating the actual dollar amount of the increase in our national debt that will happen before January 1, 2025, they simply say that there is no cap on the national debt until January 1, 2025. How much can they spend?
And while the current growth rate of our national debt projects to slightly more than $4 trillion in new debt by then, it could easily exceed $4 trillion.
Let’s see here, the original House bill included elimination of all IRS funding for the new Gestapo agents who will be a weaponized IRS force. Total savings would have been $71 billion and no new agents to hassle Americans. The McCarthy-Biden proposal prevents hiring of the force next year--not permanently--for a savings of $2 billion. And, Republicans will have to fight to prevent the hiring of the agents a year from now! But, even that is disingenuous as the $71 billion has already been preauthorized, which means that the money is there to hire IRS agents this year.
The original House bill included rescissions of Green New Deal tax credits and subsidies, which largely benefit rich individuals and corporations--Bill Gates is one of the biggest recipients rumored to be eligible for $1 billion in benefits--for a savings of more than $200 billion. The McCarthy-Biden plan continues the Green New Deal boondoggles.
The House bill originally eliminated Biden’s student loan forgiveness and restructuring plan for a projected savings of more than $400 billion. The McCarthy-Biden deal doesn’t.
The spending levels frozen at 2022 rates in the original House legislation are modified up.
And, Republican members of Congress are told that we will fight these issues again next year. In the meantime, the McCarthy-Biden plan assures an increase in the national debt by more than $4 trillion.
How come Republican leaders always tell us that next year we’ll fight hard…we really mean it!?
In fairness, the McCarthy-Biden plan asserts something that they call “Administrative Pay-Go.” It ostensibly will require bureaucrats to demonstrate how they will pay for new programs or increases in spending. Sounds good, right, except Congress has had a similar program for many years without it slowing down our spending. Why? Because Congress waives the “pay-go” provisions, as it will no doubt do in the “Administrative Pay-Go” process. Look for a failure here as well. And the craziest part of the “Administrative Pay-Go” is that the Director of the OMB can waive the pay-go provisions whenever and for whatever reason. No wonder that the Biden Administration has no concern over this provision.
And that unicorn, the “Administrative Pay-Go”, is where most of the McCarthy-Biden savings of $1.5 trillion. Since that is ephemeral at best, the McCarthy-Biden savings evaporate.
Another point that the McCarthy-Biden coalition supports disincentivizes the commitment to pass 12 appropriation bills as promised in January. It automatically creates a continuing resolution if a budget package is not passed by the close of the fiscal year in September. But, this doesn’t even take effect until 3 months into the next fiscal year, and is based on the raised spending levels.
When Republican leaders put out their talking points they said that the Democrats got nothing in this deal. (They apparently forgot about the $4 trillion increase in the spending cap).
As Progressive Democrat Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) has stated: “It doesn’t cut spending and doesn’t reduce the deficit.”
The McCarthy-Biden proposal doesn’t stop, or even slow down, deficit spending.
The McCarthy-Biden proposal doesn’t reduce the angle of trajectory of our out-of-control growth of our nation’s debt.
The McCarthy-Biden proposal doesn’t bend the spending curve down.
Instead, they put some curtains on a dilapidated budget house that will leave us with what Joe Biden wanted all along: an unsustainable, indefensible growth in our national debt.
The McCarthy-Biden plan keeps us moving over the national debt cliff with the Republican leadership’s mantra of “We’ll fight harder next year!”
I thought the last plan wasn’t a good plan because it increased the national debt by $1.5 trillion in a few months, but who knew that the McCarthy-Biden team would produce an even more malodorous plan that will accelerate our nation’s debt, and consequently our economic demise?!
Congressman Andy Biggs represents Arizona’s Fifth Congressional District and serves on the House Judiciary and Oversight & Accountability Committees.