“Clean CR” Would Forgive $3.4 Trillion in Debt

Congress is voting this week on a Continuing Resolution-Minibus appropriations bill. The package would extend temporary funding for nine appropriations bills and certain expiring programs until the end of January while providing full-year appropriations for the Agriculture, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs bills.

Buried in the bill is language to “wipe” the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) scorecard, which currently ought to show a debit of $3.4 trillion as a result of the deficit-financed One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). This borrowing is not allowed under the PAYGO law, which enforces violation with an across-the-board reduction to Medicare provider payments and certain other spending programs. Wiping the scorecard cancels this enforcement, effectively codifying recent borrowing and increasing deficits above what the law requires.

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: 

Reopening the government shouldn’t result in Congress sidestepping its own budget enforcement law. It’s long past time to end the shutdown, but this legislation is anything but clean. It blesses the $3.4 trillion of borrowing from the reconciliation law, blocking enforcement of the PAYGO law against this borrowing.

If policymakers want to avoid the PAYGO sequester, they should enact an alternative. We can’t keep borrowing every time we’re confronted with a tough choice.  

Effectively, this bill would allow more borrowing than previous proposals to extend ACA subsidies and cancel the reconciliation health savings. If that wasn’t reckless enough, by wiping the PAYGO scorecard in the future, it provides a blank check for lawmakers to increase deficits without facing PAYGO accountability until the end of this Congress.

Instead, policymakers should enact a clean CR to re-open the government. Then they should work to pass appropriations bills. Any sequester relief, like any ACA subsidy extension, should be fully offset or replaced to avoid worsening our already dismal fiscal outlook.

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For more information, please contact Matt Klucher, Assistant Director for Media Relations, at klucher@crfb.org.