Unsustainable, Crippling Federal Deficit and Debt

Floor Speech

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I don't know whether the people back home realize how rare it is for a Democrat to be calling upon a Republican to speak about a bill, but it is a testament to the size of our fiscal crisis and the fact that we have a lot of very good, bipartisan type legislators in this building.

In any event, our national debt now stands at an astronomical $35 trillion. It is an unconscionably large debt, which is the result of decades of wasteful Washington spending, and it is a problem both parties have contributed to.

To put it in historical perspective, as a share of our economy, the last time the debt was this high was at the end of World War II. Last year, the Federal Government spent more than $6 trillion and racked up a deficit of $1.7 trillion, the third highest annual deficit in our country's history.

One of the most frightening aspects of our out-of-control spending is the accelerating interest costs, which, of course, we can't reduce.

So far in 2024, we have spent $870 billion on interest costs. That is more than we spent on Medicare or the military. It is way more than we spend on the military.

To illustrate how profligate the government is, let's take a look at how much of each year's spending was borrowed: 2018, 19 cents; 2019, 22 cents; 2020, 48 cents; 2021, 40 cents; 2022, 22 cents; and 2023, 28 cents. We expect this trend to continue for at least the next 5 years.

One cause of the red ink in recent years has been the use and abuse of emergency spending. The debt ceiling deal that was passed earlier this year set caps on discretionary spending, although there is a loophole that allows certain spending to be designated as emergency spending, and that is not subject to the cap.

While there are some items that are genuine emergencies, too often, Congress slaps the term ``emergency spending'' on projects it simply wants to fund despite the caps.

Here are a few examples of Federal spending that were labeled as emergency spending: $6.6 million for the replacement of irrigation systems at two golf courses in Colorado Springs, $12 million for the renovation of a minor league ballpark in New York State, and $70 million for tourism marketing in Puerto Rico.

These emergency designations add up. Last year, Congress designated $162 billion in emergency spending. This year, it is up to $196 billion. In fact, over the last 30 years, Congress has provided $12 trillion in emergency spending.

I have been here for some of these, and I don't consider them emergencies. As soon as ``emergency'' is slapped on them, it means the money can be spent with reckless abandon.

Clearly, if we are going to tackle our debt and deficit problem, Congress will have to break its addiction to emergency spending, the culture of rampant emergency spending abuses encouraged by the CBO's baseline budget. By law, the CBO is required to assume that any spending Congress designates as emergency spending will continue on throughout the entire 10-year budget window and grow with inflation. This is obviously reckless.

Keep in mind, emergency spending is meant for one-time spending, not spending that goes on in perpetuity. You would never know that based on the way the CBO does these things.

In fact, the most recent CBO baseline update demonstrates the need for this bill. In the June report, CBO raised the projected spending over the next 10 years by $945 billion. Nearly all of this projected increase is due to $95 billion in supplemental foreign aid spending Congress passed earlier this year.

Does it make sense for CBO to assume this temporary spending will continue for all 10 years? It is ridiculous on its face.

To address this challenge, I am pleased to work with the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case) to introduce the Stop the Baseline Bloat Act. This bill would amend the relevant law to ensure emergency spending is not included in CBO's baseline. Getting our fiscal house in order, we must start with a neutral baseline, and this bill will make a meaningful step toward fiscal sanity.

Mr. Speaker, for this reason, I am pleased that this bill will be marked up by the House Budget Committee tomorrow morning. I hope this commonsense bill receives widespread bipartisan support.

I thank the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case) for his leadership in putting this bipartisan Special Order together and for leading the Stop the Baseline Bloat Act.

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