Looks Like America is Getting Debt for Christmas
“Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.” ― Herbert Hoover
Santa Claus has come early this Christmas, delivering a present through his elves in Congress. Although they spared no expense, I can promise you it’s not what you were asking for.
Well… that is unless your Christmas list included a 5,600-page, $2.3 trillion spending bill cloaked in the premise of COVID-19 relief.
Or if you were hoping to receive $25 million for gender studies in Pakistan, $700 million for Sudan, or $1 billion to the Smithsonian to construct new museums you can’t even visit right now. You might also be excited if you were passionate about West Virginia having a national park or the establishment of an anti-doping program for horse racing.
But for the rest of us, this latest spending boondoggle is the equivalent of the federal government borrowing $7,000, writing you a check for $600 (if you even qualify), and then spending $6,300 of your money on a litany of expenditures you didn’t even request.
Merry Christmas, indeed. What a delight to add an additional $2.3 trillion in debt to the $27.5 trillion already sitting under the tree!
One special treat we can all look forward to in the New Year is the return of the fiscal hawks in the GOP, who must have flown south for the winter (or, more accurately, for the last four years as the debt worked its way up from $20 trillion). With a Democrat to blame in the White House, they can finally fly home and feign concern for our skyrocketing national debt.
Sadly, this latest spending bill is not unique. Congress is fundamentally broken and the process by which laws and budgets are debated and amended and passed is nonfunctional.
The process of passing a Congressional budget has become the government equivalent of an end-of-semester group project in school. Instead of working hard together for months to turn in a quality product, they meet the night before the due-date and cobble together a half-assed effort. It is the tragedy of the commons, they know that without a single person to hold accountable they can continue to pass the buck to future generations.
Leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell have known about the recent deadline for months. And instead of making the responsible choice of spending weeks debating, amending, and passing reasonable, meaningful approriations bills to fund the priorities of our nation, they waited until the last minute to use the threat of a government shutdown and force members into a no-win situation.
Why does Congress choose to do it this way? Because it’s easy. Because there’s no accountability. Because there’s a scapegoat for everyone.
Why does America put up with it? Because it is all we know. The last time Congress passed a budget the right way was 1996. That's right, there are college graduates that weren't alive the last time Congress had an appropriations process that involved legitimate debate and deliberation.
We can and should demand better from our elected officials because this is not the way our government was designed to function. Legislating and appropriating were meant to be deliberative processes that reflected the needs and priorities of the nation as a whole – not of just the handful of members of Congress who comprise “leadership” and the special interests that fund their campaigns.
This breakdown in our legislative process has led to unprecedented ballooning of our debt and deficit to unsustainable levels while creating the cover for rank-and-file members to vote for these gross abdications of fiscal responsibility as it was either the omnibus or bust.
