For Mike Johnson it was effectively a Day 1 priority.

It’s well past time, the newly elected House speaker said in October, to establish a bipartisan commission to tackle the federal government’s growing $34.6 trillion in debt. “The consequences if we don’t act now are unbearable,” he said, echoing warnings from his predecessor and other House Republicans.

More than six months later, the proposal appears all but dead, extinguished by vocal opposition from both the right and the left.

The collapse underscores an unyielding dynamic in Washington, with lawmakers in both parties loath to consider the unpopular tradeoffs that would be necessary to stem the nation’s swelling tide of red ink — particularly in an election year. Facing the reality that any fiscal commission would almost certainly suggest that Americans pay more or get less from their government, lawmakers have time and again done what they do so well: punt the problem to the next Congress. And they seem poised to do so again.

  • originalucifer
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    fedilink
    422 months ago

    ha, wow. this really highlights how out of whack the conservatives are. the debt is usually the club they use to beat the dems into submission when they do not control the whitehouse. when conservatives have the white house, the debt is never, ever an issue.