The House Just Passed a Budget Deal That Will Add $1.7 Trillion to the National Debt

Members of Congress are well aware of the looming threat of the $22 trillion (and growing) national debt, but seem incapable of doing anything except making it worse.


Sometimes Congress goes beyond parody.

"Make no mistake," House Majority Leader Steney Hoyer (D–Md.) said Thursday afternoon during a debate over a new budget deal on the House floor, "we're going to have to make some tough decisions in the years ahead to make sure our fiscal house is in order."

But why worry about that today, right? Hoyer's comments pretty effectively sum-up the thinking that governs Congress these days. Lawmakers are well aware of the looming threat posed by the $22 trillion (and growing) national debt, but today they voted to make that problem worse.

Indeed, the difficult decisions that will face future member of Congress only got more difficult on Thursday, as the House voted 284-149 to pass a two-year, $2.7 trillion budget deal that hikes federal spending by about $320 billion annually and is estimated to add about $1.7 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years. The U.S. was already poised to run trillion-dollar deficits for the foreseeable future, and the new budget deal will make it more difficult to curb those annual deficits in the years ahead.

The budget deal shatters budget caps and actually hikes spending above the baseline that was in place before the 2011 bill that imposed the so-called "sequestration."

All but 16 House Democrats supported the budget plan, which was hammered out over the past week between Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

President Donald Trump, despite promising last year that he would "never sign another bill" that blew up the deficit as the 2018 bipartisan budget deal did, has been nothing but supportive of the new agreement. He met with Republican lawmakers—many of whom were reportedly wavering in their support for more spending—for a lunch on Thursday where he urged affirmative votes.

In the end, 65 Republicans in the House supported the deal, while 132 voted against it. Rep. Justin Amash (I–Mich.), a former Republican who is now the lone independent in the House, voted "nay."

A majority of Republicans voting against a budget deal inked by a Republican president might seem like a noteworthy event, but today's GOP lawmakers only vote for fiscal conservatism when it doesn't matter.

When it did matter, they were more than happy to add to the deficit. In 2016, when Trump was elected and Republicans grabbed control of all aspects of the federal government's budget-making authority, the United States was carrying about $19 trillion in debt. Today, in no small part due to the 2018 budget bill the Republican-controlled Congress passed and Trump signed, the national debt has soared past $22 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that current policies—which doesn't include the hike in spending approved by the House on Thursday—will add another $11 trillion by the end of 2029.

If the budget deal eventually makes it to Trump's desk and gets his signature, the 45th president will have personally added $4.1 trillion to the national debt in a little over two years in office, according to a new analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which advocates for balanced budgets.

First, it must pass the Senate, which is planning to vote on the bill next week.

One of the final speakers before the House vote was Rep. Steve Womack (R–Ark.), the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee. He reflected on the fact that lawmakers would soon be leaving Washington for a few weeks of work in district offices—for Womack, that means having some town hall meetings with constituents.

"I already know most people are going to say 'look, you guys have a spending problem up there in Washington,'" Womack said.

Then he voted for the bill too.


NEXT: A Federal Judge Has Put Trump's Anti-Asylum Rule on Ice


  1. This article has been up for over an hour now and mine is the first comment. It’s kinda sad. No one seems to care about spending, not even libertarians anymore it seems. It’s all culture war bullshit all the time.

    1. You dont seem to care either as your comment only deals with expectations of others. How about this. Appears to be veto proof in the house. Mostly a democrat passed bill with only 65 gop supporting it please enlighten us with how it is the GOP and Trumps fault like you always do.

      Now for an actual libertarian perspective. Burn down the budget. Amendment to outlaw baseline budgeting. Freeze on all departments that can t find a way to trim their budget. Have Congress support the 5% cuts trump asked his cabinet to find when they find cuts. Then again the house already rejected a 0.3% cut, so probably a waste of time. And finally stop the department policy of spend it or lose it.

      By the way, some of us have work and arent sitting on reason all day like you. Oh noes.

      1. “By the way, some of us have work and arent sitting on reason all day like you.”

        Check the timestamp dumfuck.

        1. Do you know his schedule cunt?

          1. We don’t all work the graveyard shift at taco bell like you, you fucking twat.

            1. Taco Bell closes here before my shift at work is over.

              Which sucks.

    2. Your concern is…


      1. Is concern is……proven by your stupid comment.

    3. Some of us work you weasel little faggot. Not Pedo Jeffy though. Lots of time for him to shitpost and whack it to child rape videos,

      1. Aahahahahahah….fail often and spectacularly, little shitty. You cum-guzzling ginger lover! HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

      2. My point is proven, you vacuous fuck

        1. Oops, hope you didn’t need that sock. Not sure I’ve even seen a comment with more fails than that one. Nice work…even for you. lol

    4. oh, libertarians care. they’re just hoping no one will notice that Trump spends like a drunken Democrat with a shopping problem.

    5. “”The House Just Passed a Budget Deal That Will Add $1.7 Trillion to the National Debt””

      The house is led by Pelosi and has the democrat majority. Them passing such a big spending bill is a dog bits man story.

      1. It’s still fucking obscene.

  2. The deficit is the poster child for the fundamental flaw in democracy. When officials and candidates can flout fiscal reality and instead pander to voters who just want to pay less and get more (and least for themselves) then there is no hope of sanity.

    If the Constitution needs a re-write, the most important edit is to completely outlaw deficit spending, no matter what voters and their idiot representatives want.

    1. Perhaps we could also cut deficit spending in the private economy. The economy THRIVES on private debt (bank loans). Get a fucking life, man!

  3. It’s not real money, just numbers on papers.

    1. And they’re gonna have to print lots more papers…

      1. Thanks for indicating you have a grasp on the true risk: harmful inflation (hyperinflation). In terms of our total economic position, it’s interesting that there’s usually no mention of the other side of the balance sheet: assets. I’m concerned about the federal government one day printing way too much money (and also spending money on ever more unproductive things), but the good news today is that the U.S. net wealth to GDP ratio has never been higher in the last 60 years.

        1. The prevention and cure for inflation is to make sure the Supply of goods and services (usually food or energy ) is adequate, and the Reward for owning dollars (interest), remains adequate.

          Example: Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation began when its leader, Robert Mugabe stole farm land from white farmers and gave it to black people who had no experience farming.

          The resultant food shortage caused inflation. Then, Mugabe’s response was to print currency, which did nothing to solve the fundamental shortage problem. And as the inflation worsened, more and more useless currency printing followed, and it was the currency printing that wrongly was blamed for the inflation.

          It was as though someone prescribed wine to cure a cancer. As the cancer progressed, more and more wine was prescribed until the patient died, and the wine was blamed as the cause of the cancer.

          In short, to prevent inflation don’t cut federal deficit spending. Rather, make sure the economy has plenty of food and energy and high enough interest rates.

  4. If Trump were really smart, he’d veto this with fanfare saying it adds too much debt. Then Congress in a bipartisan fit of spending, of course, will override the veto, and Trump can point at it and say “I tried to stop them from spending that much money. I did all I could legally to stop it. I agreed with some of the spending, sure, but not all of it. It’s just too much.”

    1. He should veto it. If not, I at least hope he gets something positive in return.

      1. That’s only because you are stupid enough to believe that the self-declared ‘king of debt’ has any interest in fiscal constraint…proving again that you are the biggest retard at reason. At least you’re not alone.

  5. 22.533 trillion USD today.
    round that up to 23

  6. “the 45th president will have personally added $4.1 trillion to the national debt in a little over two years in office”

    Didn’t Obama do that much in just 3 week or was three months.

    Anyway here some thing I would do to lessen fedral spending just off of my head.

    eliminate the DEA,Home land Security, the ATF ( really , Just how drunk was Nixon to have tax collectors with guns) and Obama care.
    Have all federal parks and monument put up for land lease to nonprofits or for profits organizations with the agreement that they must maintain to park or monument, but can keep any money above maintenance and may charge what they want for visiting said place, and that just a start I did not even get to things like PBS which should have no government funding at all.

    1. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

  7. Why is the Senate voting on a spending bill, out of curiosity?

    1. US Constitution Article I Section 7

  8. thank you so much for good news!

  9. When the government spends more, it distorts the economy immediately. It doesn’t matter whether the money is taxed or borrowed.

    Either way, private consumption and investment get turned into government consumption.

  10. nice one said

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  12. Once again, Congress has taken steps to gain control over the budget, retard spending and trim the deficit, and as they have for 97% of the time over the last 40 years, failed miserably. When you have over 80% of your spending already etched in stone, there is not much room for compromise or cuts. Nothing will ever be done to curtail spending until a major financial/debt crisis hit the fan. Probably by the early 2030’s is my guess. The debt ceiling will continue to rise, Congress will vastly overspend and the citizen will be forced to pay higher taxes…all this is 100% certain.

    1. Let’s dispense with the “next generation” nonsense. The “next generation” didn’t pay for the $40 Billion debt of 1940. The “next generation” didn’t pay for the $3 Trillion debt of 1992. And today’s generation is not paying for any past debt.

      Taxpayers do not fund federal debt. The deposits themselves are returned upon maturity, and the interest on those deposits is paid by new dollars created by the federal government.

      No tax dollars involved.

  13. […] Bien entendu, comme l'ont souligné de nombreux experts financiers, le gouvernement des États-Unis n'aura finalement plus d'autre choix que d'exposer ses habitudes de consommation à tout contrôle, car il ne semble pas y avoir de fin à la dépendance du Congrès à dépenser de l'argent que le co…. […]

  14. The number of dollars deposited into T-security accounts (federal debt) has no effect on the federal government’s ability to spend. The government doesn’t touch the dollars in T-security accounts.

    When the federal government spends, it sends instructions (not dollars) to a supplier’s bank, instructing the bank to increase the balance in the creditor’s checking account.

  15. […] привычки к расходам, поскольку, похоже, нет конца склонности Конгресса тратить деньги, которых нет у […]

  16. […] of the ceaseless maelstrom of poor policy, this new budget has set up the country for a major economic disaster. As Congressman Thomas Massie pointed out in his attempt to have the bill renamed, this budget was […]

  17. […] The House Just Passed a Budget Deal That Will Add $1.7 Trillion to the National Debt – Reason.com […]

  18. […] The House Just Passed a Budget Deal That Will Add $1.7 Trillion to the National Debt […]

  19. […] might want to tell Tubs that Trump just endorsed a budget deal that will add an estimated $1.7 trillion to the national debt, and then relied on votes from the godless secular-socialist Democrats to get […]

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