Once again, Washington, D.C., is engaged in the age-old “will they or won’t they shut down the government?” debate, while most Americans roll their eyes. But something we were promised mere months ago is glaringly absent from the conversation.
At the moment, Republican leaders are insisting on a clean continuing resolution to keep the government funded through November 21, just in time to pressure their colleagues with a pre-turkey shutdown. Meanwhile, Democrats in the minority position hold firm on their demand for extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
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You’re unlikely to hear much mention of the trillions of dollars in savings promised to offset the lost revenue from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s tax cuts.
In case anyone forgot about those promises, here’s a reminder: The Congressional Budget Office projected that the OBBBA would decrease government revenue and increase 10-year deficits by $4 trillion after factoring in the interest costs on the resulting additional borrowing. The White House derided CBO’s estimate, with Deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller attributing it to an “accounting gimmick.”
Instead, deficits would be reduced by as much as $11 trillion, or at least that’s the narrative put forth by the White House and President Donald Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors. Some of these savings are based on fantastical economic growth assumptions. Some are supposed to come from Trump’s unilateral tax hikes on imports, which apparently are not expected to hamper growth.
And, most relevant to this month’s budget debate, some of the supposed savings are based on the $1.6 trillion in discretionary spending cuts included in the president’s budget proposal earlier this year.
Now, typically, Congress discards a president’s annual budget request. As the old Washington adage goes, “The president proposes and the Congress disposes.” However, there is something at least rhetorically different this time around, and it warrants paying more attention than usual to Trump’s budget request.
First, the administration already used Trump’s proposed discretionary cuts to downplay the cost of a major piece of fiscal legislation. But if the White House truly intends to implement those cuts, where is the insistence to do so now? Based on its silence, it appears as though there was never any serious commitment to making those cuts.
There’s an important lesson about giving politicians leverage for achievements they haven’t delivered yet. Regardless, the White House shouldn’t be let off the hook for the money now.
Second, Republicans in Congress have echoed the administration’s calls to budget with the totality of Trump’s agenda in mind, including the yet-to-materialize discretionary proposals and DOGE cuts. Unfortunately, the latter of these two didn’t pan out so well, unless you believe a one-time $9 billion rescission — equal to 0.1% of all federal spending — justifies the bold claim that “taxpayer dollars are no longer being wasted,” as House Speaker Mike Johnson apparently believes.
Last, since the OBBBA’s enactment, Johnson has explicitly stated leadership’s intent to reduce discretionary spending through “rescissions packages … and appropriating at lower levels of funding.” We got one rescission package, but the temporary continuing resolution that passed the House fails to lower funding levels. With all of the above in mind, it’s hard to believe that the final budget agreement will do so.
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None of us should be naïve enough to believe that politicians will follow through on their promises. But we should remind them of those promises and hold them accountable — particularly when broken promises move us closer to a debt crisis.
Republicans widely criticized Democrats for their fiscal irresponsibility under President Joe Biden. Intellectual consistency demands we now hold Republicans to a similar standard.
Joshua Rowley is a Gibbs scholar and research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He formerly worked as an economist for the House Budget Committee.