Midterm Message: Addressing Affordability Concerns Starts with Deficit Reduction

Press reports have called the midterm elections, resulting in new majority control of the House and Senate in the 120th Congress. The new Congress will be sworn in and face historically high debt and deficits, elevated inflation, rising interest rates, trust fund programs facing insolvency, and an increasingly challenging geopolitical environment.

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

Americans are rightly concerned about rising costs and prices, and the best thing a new Congress and the White House can do to improve affordability is to enact meaningful deficit reduction. A new Congress will be sworn in with $2 trillion annual deficits, debt approaching World War II-era highs, interest costs exceeding what we spend on defense, and trust funds for important programs facing insolvency in a few short years.

Instead of allowing these warnings to continue blaring, we need to pivot back to responsible fiscal policy in Washington. Doing so could help temper inflation; lower interest rates; reduce the cost of health care, housing, and education; and boost incomes and wealth. Getting control of our fiscal situation could also help prevent the next affordability crisis by restoring the solvency of Social Security and Medicare while leaving the nation better prepared for any future recession or threats, foreign or domestic.

There are plenty of ideas with bipartisan support that the new Congress and the White House could pull from to give both Americans and bond markets confidence they understand the enormity of challenges that we have neglected for far too long. This would ideally begin by agreeing to a 3% deficit-to-GDP target, establishing a bipartisan commission to address our debt and trust fund challenges, and enacting the spending and revenue policies necessary to achieve a better fiscal course.

But if past is prologue, our dangerously polarized and hyperpartisan politics in Washington will only serve to punt these decisions to future generations or until bond markets force it upon us. During President Trump’s first term, when the 116th Congress had split partisan control, one of the rare instances of bipartisanship besides the COVID response was the joining of hands in borrowing trillions for budget-busting spending bills. We can ill afford that repeat of history.

Washington should heed the demand of voters to focus on issues impacting their pocketbook while also living up to the responsibility entrusted in elected leaders to be stewards of our nation’s fiscal future. We stand ready to work with the new Congress and the White House to meet that call. 

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