The recent federal money dustup between Democrats and Republicans, big spenders versus less big, featured a bill longer than Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace – 1,500 pages. This is the tip of the iceberg. What is coming is a fight for fiscal sanity. Next year, we will hit the full iceberg.
What people do not appreciate is how irresponsible our federal leaders have been over two and a half decades, in particular the U.S. Congress, especially when Democrat-controlled.
Baseline facts explain how we got here, and how – with Trump-Vance pushing to re-rationalize the spending process – we may start to get out.
The last time the U.S. economy was in rough balance, the same amount of money coming in as going out – with modest debt – was in 2000. That year, Bill Clinton was president, economy humming.
That year capped a long stretch of rough balance, after Carter’s recession. The prior 20 years saw Reagan bring the Soviets to their knees, contain Iran, rebuild our defenses, and sign a 25 percent income tax cut, as well as the first Gulf War under George HW Bush.
By 2000, which now seems ancient, we had a mere 18 billion increase in national debt, an annual surplus of 236 billion. While Clinton ran large deficits from 1993 to 1997, balance loomed.
Then, suddenly, we got 9-11, which justified defense expenditures to hit Afghanistan. But George W. Bush, unlike his father, did not stop there. By 2002, we were spending wildly, uptick unmanageable. We had a 158 billion deficit increase, 421 billion added to the national debt.
Then came Iraq, in retrospect surreal. Rather than stop in Afghanistan, those around Bush 43 – led by Liz Cheney’s father, Vice President Dick – decided we needed to expand the war to Iraq.
Facts say it all: Between 2003 and 2008, Bush-Cheney posted massive deficits, our debt increasing in 2003 by 555 billion, in 2004 by 596 billion, 2005 by 554 billion, 2006 by 574 billion, 2007 by 501 billion, and 2008 by 1,017 billion. Those are annual increases.
Punch drunk by 2009, Obama took us to a new level of debt. His increases – to fund schemes from nationalized health to socialized everything – were stunning, 25.2 percent of GDP.
Obama did not stop there. The highest annual deficit – a shortfall of revenue to spending – was 458 billion before Obama, and the last Republican congressional deficit was 161 billion. But Obama’s first four deficits – in order – were 1.41 trillion, 1.29 trillion, 1.3 trillion, and 1.32 trillion. Wild spending got normalized. The year before Trump, Obama added 1.42 billion to the debt.
Then came Trump. Using the old-fashioned notion that money left in taxpayers’ pockets generates more income – for the whole economy – than bureaucrats who produce nothing, Trump cut taxes. The economy surged. Growth surged. Deficits shrink when growth outpaces debt; it did.
However, no fault of the president’s, the Chinese virus hit America, creating panic, a costly health crisis, and cascading crises as liberties were restricted, and mandates issued. Growth could not keep up with spending.
In the midst of this foreign-origin shock, trending toward recovery by 2021, Biden went on another spending spree. Reversing Trump’s growth, Biden shut down America’s energy independence, penalized small businesses, pushed entitlement, and flipped the table.
As his tenure continued, a spendthrift congress risked fiscal chaos. By 2024, we had rolling deficits of 3 trillion, spending no one wanted, trillions added to the national debt, now over 36 trillion. Worse, Biden’s inflation spiked interest rates, which also applied to our debt.
So, here we sit. Last week, the media had a coronary when word of a possible shutdown – which is never really a “shutdown,” since “essential” workers keep working – was floated. Fearing political fallout, most Republicans and all Democrats threw in the towel and passed more spending.
Friends, brace for impact: We have not yet faced what is needed – likely redlining programs, agencies, and departments for balance. This was just the tip of the iceberg. Next year, we hit the full iceberg. Massive debt is simply not sustainable. Restoring fiscal sanity is now essential.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).
True government spending has increased over the decades but let’s not blame COVID for ALL of Trumps. Trump was no spend-thrift; the debt clock hardly slowed diwn fir him! I say that and voted for him then & now. We can’t be afraid to hold even his feet to the fire if something is to be done in his second term.
Actually, an excellent article RBC, that summarizes not only how we got here, but what we must be willing to do to reverse course and cut the massive size of the federal budget to something far more reasonable. You also had the guts to point out the obvious roadblock in the room to getting anything meaningful done in terms of runaway spending: That being Congress.
While members of Congress, at least on the Republican side, may talk about the need and willingness to slash the bloat of massive overspending, when the rubber hits the road, and they actually have to follow through with real actions to do so, many Republican members of Congress just reflexively cave for the sake of political expediency. That of course has to change, and the American people have to hold ALL members of Congress to account. That’s our job, meaning the citizens of this country, and we have to be willing to do our part or nothing will change, but the size of the budget deficits will continue to balloon in size until the entire federal budget consists solely of servicing the interest on the national debt and the United States implodes economically.
We will find out real fast in 2025, if Congress is serious about budgetary restraint and cutting the size of the federal government substantially or if it is all just empty talk. DOGE is supposed to issue recommendations to both the President and Congress on a regular basis over the next 18 months leading up to when DOGE is supposed to sunset on July 4th, 2026, and I have no doubt that Trump will do what he can from his perspective via executive orders. If Congress is serious, you’ll see a lot of legislation being enacted to revise budgets downward or even scale back or eliminate whole programs and departments. It doesn’t take a lot of time and effort on Congress’ part to revise departmental, agency and program budgets downward. Three or four pages at most per department, agency or program impacted. If Congress is NOT serious, then what you’ll see instead is a lot of endless congressional committee reviews of the DOGE recommendations, with lots of photo ops of the member of Congress looking concerned and serious, where Congress studies the recommendations ad nauseum until the next election cycle.
Washington, as you know, is a fairly predictable place both when it wants to do something and when it just wants to pretend it wants to do something. So like I said, we’ll know real fast which way Congress is really moving on this subject.
Everyone is celebrating the “deal” last week. BUT, do most of you realize that the 122 page deal was for the same amount of money that the 1500 page bill was for? They even included the 3 million for molasses monitoring, and no one said anything! And we are funding 9 BILLION for rebuilding the Baltimore bridge, instead of insisting that they insurance company and ship company pay most of it. I understand maritime law sets limits, then they are NOT allowed to sail our waters any longer. Period. All the bill rewrite did was spread the same amount over more of the “disaster funding” groups than the first bill. And they’ll probably do the same thing in March when we go through this again. UNLESS the Republicans unite, grow a spine and work for US instead of for themselves! DOGE won’t be able to cut if the Congress keeps spending more and more. And they just refunded the DOD who hasn’t passed an audit in the past 8 tries. A budget filled with more wasteful programs and $20K toilet seats.
What I would like to know, Since we have learned of President Biden’s health issues, why are we allowing him to make spending decisions, and legal decisions that effect the lives of many Americans. The many foreign policy decisions, he was simply not a part of, because no one could reach him in a timely way, why is he still in the office of the highest office in our land? This is an elementary question. Pardoning his son is just the least of it.
What about the wars around the globe? He nor his people have no idea how to deal with this, and he still has liberty, as if he is aware1
I sure do have some questions of the incoming Trump Administration. I heard President Trump bemoan loudly any establishment of a “Central Bank Digital Currency”. But then I also heard President Trump praise and promise the expansion of Crypto Currency. What is Crypto Currency if it is not a CBDC? It is worse in one respect as it adds in “gambling” to the equation. Think of it for a moment. Our nation went off the gold standard and under Roosevelt not Nixon, which turned our currency into a Fiat currency. Crypto is a fiat currency with speculation added to such madness.Like everything the government touches its involvement with crypto will fail and most likely fail disasterously.
CUT spending
CUT perks to Spend More
Scrap CRs
Balanced Budget
Adopt DOGE Input
Merge needed programs
So true Robert. We must get government spending under control. I pray this happens during these next four years.
Libertarianism’s economic record of disaster is the 1930’s.
Laissez-faire Libertarian open markets can never provide the security needed for productivity in The United States.
American history after the civil war until the late 1920’s shows only Protectionism has provided the best fuel to drive engines of innovation and productivity.
Lincoln enabled Protectionism drove American incentive, production, and economic boom.
Libertarian Open markets allow competitive economies to steal American innovation and undercut American production and markets.
Why do so many blame the messengers,like Congress or the administration?If American voters wanted to become independent from the welfare state,they could vote for Libertarians.Unfortunately,Americans have become lazy,spoiled and entitled.Thinking,that if you live in America,you should receive something for nothing,paid for by others.Like the late,great Libertarian,Walter Williams said,”We have become a nation of thieves,using our vote to steal from others”.Maybe,someday in the future,when our welfare state gets a lot poorer,we will elect someone like Milie,who is really attacking the welfare state in Argentina.