Posted on 01/16/2024 4:05:44 PM PST by Deadeye Division
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bipartisan legislation to create a commission charged with taming the $34 trillion U.S. national debt is set to advance this week in a House of Representatives panel, as lawmakers battle over federal spending.
The House Budget Committee on Tuesday said it will hold a work session at 10 a.m. (1500 GMT) on Thursday to debate and potentially vote on the "Fiscal Commission Act of 2023," just weeks after Washington's total public debt breached the $34 trillion mark, putting it at more than 122% of GDP.
Backers of the bill hope it could help make the national debt a topic of greater discussion during the 2024 presidential campaign.
"While a debt commission is not a panacea to fix all our financial problems, it can offer a productive, de-politicized forum for educating the public and identifying consensus solutions for addressing our growing deficits and long-term unfunded liabilities," Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington said in a statement to Reuters.
The move follows Moody's decision in mid-November to lower its outlook on the U.S. credit rating to "negative" from "stable," citing "political polarization in Congress" over ways to address the debt and the costs of financing it.
Similar bipartisan legislation was introduced late last year by retiring Senators Joe Manchin, a Democrat, and Mitt Romney, a Republican.
While the House and Senate bills have some bipartisan support, there are significant pockets of resistance. Some liberal Democrats argue that such a commission would be a "back-door" way of cutting benefits in the popular Social Security and Medicare retirement and healthcare programs.
Republican Representative Bill Huizenga introduced the legislation in November with bipartisan support. He was joined by Democratic Representative Scott Peters, a member of the Budget Committee.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone and Paul Simao)
Would this be the 10th or the 12th Blue Ribbon Commission on government debt?
politicians play moronic taxpayers.
Spending other peoples money like pigs at
a slop trough.
The answer is easy: NO MORE FOREIGN AID CASH GIVEAWAYS
Far too much. They’re just adding on to the debt, like the fools they are.
Just great... another panel.
Rand Paul has come up with several very simple proposals over the last decade. In one bill, he asked Congress to eliminate the automatic annual budget increases, AND every dept CUT their budget spend by 5% … it failed to pass. The second one recently called for a dime cut since the nickel bill failed and we’re deeper in the hole. Guess what?
My personal philosophy is simple:
Eliminate every Federal department and agency created since 1960.
Congress would do well to follow in the footsteps of US Corporations and companies: reduce head count. Part of that reduction is to, slowly, eliminate those departments and agencies that duplicate similar departments run by the States, and more local government bodies. Now, some agencies do need to be federal in scope, such as the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission. Other like agencies are easy to identify and segregate. Some agencies, like the National Transportation Safety Board, can be privatized and paid for by their members. Others can be returned to the States. And the list goes on.
I think that leaves the post office and commerce.
Like sending tax dollars to Ukraine to pay salaries of public employees and pensions for retirees over there.
I love the bee.. oh wait.
You don’t have to be responsible or honest if the people can be fooled into thinking you are doing something.
This is the Uniparty Platform.
They rape us and we do nothing.
Anyone who is on board with a commission is on board with Social Security cuts.
“Bravo Sierra” as the late great G. Gordon Liddy used to say on the radio.
There is no political will to deal with this.
There is a constituency for every single dollar spent by the federal government. Thus, there will be someone protesting any effort to trim back spending.
It is possible to balance the budget and pay down the debt, but doing so would require offending the beneficiaries of the government spending.
Key word “considers.” No one who “considers” ever acts in DC.
There are huge future unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare. How those liabilities will ever be funded is unclear.
Some have suggested trimming back benefits for younger people , while leaving benefits for workers in their 50s and older alone.
Social security is part of the total federal budget problem.
You might want to re-read the Constitution.
Still, you’re on the right track. More than half of Fedzilla is unconstitutional.
The Federal Government now spends more money on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the National Debt, and defense than it collects in taxes. So without cuts to those categories, even if the government totally eliminated all other spending, the budget still wouldn’t balance.
These massive deficits in spending every year, by every president of late, has kept the system barely functioning. The only ‘growth’ we get now has been massive deficits and debt, and Republican and Democrat voters show no interest in stopping that spending.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.