The Bipartisan Budget the Big Government vs. Fiscal Responsibility Divide

Blog Post 2: The Bipartisan Budget the Big Government vs. Fiscal Responsibility Divide

By Rudolph Zombek

            It would appear that big spending or fiscal conservatism have no color in the 116^th Congress. The Bipartisan Budget Bill of 2019 passed the House on July 25, 2019, passed the Senate on August 1, 2019, and was signed into law by President Trump on August 2, 2019 after passing through committee in 72 hours (GovTrack.com, 2019). The parties split in voting and it would appear that this piece of legislation had supermajority support (>60%) support in both Chambers of Congress. However, there were also dissentions in both parties with 5 Not Voting in the Senate (Figure 1). So, in a rare occasion of bipartisanship in Washington, compromise was reached. However, there is a divide between “Big Government” politicians and “Fiscally Responsible” politicians that crosses party lines.

                                       Figure 1: Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019(GovTrack.com, 2019).

            The budget deficit alarmism is normally the hallmark of the GOP, but according to the voting above it would seem to have the GOP and Democratic parties split. The Brookings Institution states, “The long-term budget outlook remains problematic” and that “the estimated fiscal gap continues to widen at 3.59% of GDP” with either “tax increases or non-discretionary cuts” needed to reduce the debt to GDP ratio (Auerbach, Gale, 2019). Although the current law is designed to make the gap 2.5% to 1.3% by 2029, the Trump Tax cuts may keep the current gap and deficit as is for the next decade, resulting in no actual change to reducing debt to GDP (Auerbach, Gale, 2019). So, Fiscal Hawks will continue to be alarmed especially after a whopping $1.092 trillion deficit after the last Bipartisan Budget of 2018 (Auerbach, Gale, 2019).

For those budget minded politicians there was bipartisan backlash to the deal. Mark Meadows (R-NC) Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus said, “We have a difference of opinion on this particular issue, one that’s not going to change” (Werner, Paletta, 2019). The Washington Post reported that “unlike in some past budget battles, where Meadows and other conservatives lobbied Trump until the end to oppose bipartisan compromise” which is signaling a split in GOP members of both chambers in fiscal discipline (Werner, Paletta, 2019). Sixteen Democrats in the House and five in the Senate opposed the deal with Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) saying “Our debt is not skyrocketing because we are spending it on things we need like updates [to] infrastructure or investments in education — it’s skyrocketing because of irresponsible spending,” (Everett, Bresnahan, 2019). Tester was also joined by Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Tim Scott (R-SC) and joined with Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) of West Virginia and Tom Carper (D-DE) of Delaware in a joint statement asserting that “as former Governors, we were responsible for setting a budget each year that was fiscally responsible to fund our priorities” (Everett, Bresnahan, 2019).   This signals that there are also cracks in the Democratic majority in the house and key Senators in the minority on Capitol Hill.

Those who wanted to spend more money after the recent memory of five years of budget sequester got to spend money on their focus areas. On the GOP side of the aisle, Senate Majority leader Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stated “Considering the circumstances of divided government, this is a good deal, it’s a good deal because it achieves the No. 1 goal on the Republican side of the aisle: providing for the common defense” (Cochrane, 2019). With the passage of The Bipartisan Budget Bill of 2019, it would appear that the President is not serious about balancing the budget as long as there is a budget passed and put in front of his desk. On the Democratic side in the Senate, Senate Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stated pointed to an increase in domestic spending, “got rid of it on our terms,” pointing to the end of spending sequestration caps from 2013 (Cochrane, 2019). So, both parties got together to fund their favorite spending items and the two year budget deal was passed overwhelmingly in the Senate 67 yeas, 28 nays, and 5 abstains of which three Democrats, one Republican, and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) participated in (Figure 1). It would seem that after the five years of sequestration and continuing resolutions, the first bipartisan deals were made in 2018 and formally ended the sequestration era in 2019 by removing the rest of the spending caps on discretionary spending.

            According to PolitiFact, one of President Trump’s promises were declared broken after The Bipartisan Budget Bill of 2018 was passed and a second one seems to be on the track of being broken. The first promise was to “balance the budget fairly quickly” which is declared broken and the second promise to “eliminate the federal debt in 8 years”(Jacobson, 2018) seems to be on track to be broken, even if the President manages to win the 2020 election (Tobias, 2017). The President’s signature of The Bipartisan Budget Bill of 2019 has not gone unnoticed by those in his own party. “This is an amazing capitulation with regard to sustainable spending and financial prudence in Washington, D.C.,” said Mark Sanford a Republican presidential candidate running against the president (Cochrane, 2019). The bipartisan deal may come to bite the President in the future with fiscal and Tea Party conservatives. However, after years of sequestration Trump is reaching out to other members of his base tweeting “House Republicans should support the TWO YEAR BUDGET AGREEMENT which greatly helps our Military and our Vets” (Cochrane, 2019). We will see in the 2020 election cycle if the President’s broken promises to fiscal conservatives will show up in the ballot box.

So, one can see that the political divide is not just with Conservatives vs Liberals/Progressives but by the means of divvying up the money as fiscal responsibility and Big Government spenders. This split is more apparent in the GOP in both chambers of Congress and has a President who promised fiscal responsibility and is backtracking and breaking those promises to get the country to function properly in the legislative process. In an era of breaking away from “regular order” of the legislative process, folks that would like to see more bipartisan compromise can find relief that the Congress can actually work together to make a budget after the 2013-2018 period of sequestration and continuing resolutions. Will there be more compromise on the Hill in future legislation? Only, the next year will tell if the parties can work together to pass legislation before the 2020 election.

References

Auerbach, Allan. Gale, William G. “Revisiting the Budget Outlook: An Update After the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019”. Brookings Institution. Washington DC. October 10, 2019. Accessed on October 14, 2019 https://www.brookings.edu/research/revisiting-the-budget-outlook-an-update-after-the-bipartisan-budget-act-of-2019/

Cochrane, Emily. “Divided House Passes 2-Year Budget Deal to Raise Spending”

 New York Times. New York, NY. July 25, 2019. Accessed on October 14, 2019 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/us/politics/budget-spending-deal.html

Everett, Burgess. Bresnahan, John. “Senate Passes Massive 2-Year Budget Deal” Politico. Washington DC. August 1, 2019. Accessed on October 14, 2019 https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/01/budget-deal-senate-vote-1444084

Jacobson, Louis. “Balance Federal Budget Fairly Quickly”. PolitiFact. Washington DC. December 5th, 2018. Accessed on October 14, 2019 https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/promise/1430/balance-federal-budget-fairly-quickly/

Tobias, Manuela. “Eliminate the Federal Debt in 8 years” PolitiFact. Washington DC. October, 20, 2017 https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/promise/1418/eliminate-federal-debt-8-years/

Werner, Erica. Paletta, Damian. “House Passes Two-Year Budget Deal to Lift Spending, Suspend Debt Ceiling” Washington Post. Washington DC. July 25, 2019 “Accessed on October 14, 2019 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-urges-republicans-to-support-budget-deal-as-house-prepares-to-vote/2019/07/25/010d6e6a-aee3-11e9-a0c9-6d2d7818f3da_story.html