Congress is moving closer to establishing a bipartisan commission to tackle the ballooning $34 trillion national debt.
The Republican-led House Budget Committee voted 22–12 to create a 16-member commission and submit fiscal policy recommendations. The panel would consist of six Republican and six Democratic lawmakers, as well as four outside experts without any voting power.
The commission would assess measures to balance the federal budget as early as possible. It would propose mechanisms to bolster the long-term solvency of various programs, particularly Medicare and Social Security. The commission would also be mandated to hold six hearings nationwide and submit a final report with recommendations by May 2025.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) celebrated the development, describing it as “a positive step toward fiscal sanity.”
Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), the House Budget Committee chair, blamed both parties for being fiscally irresponsible and asserted that the annual difficulty in approving spending bills proves the process is broken.
“We are all in this boat together. The boat is sinking. Our unsustainable national debt is the greatest challenge of the 21st century,” he said.
“Let’s look at this unfunded liability that’s going to bankrupt the country and come up with a plan that will give our children the same freedom and opportunities we’ve had. OK? That’s why we do this.”
However, Democrats, including Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), have warned that some officials might exploit the commission “as a backdoor way to force through unpopular cuts” to Medicare and Social Security.
Moderate Democrats, such as Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), contend that Social Security benefits will eventually be reduced after the retirement program’s reserves are exhausted in a decade because it is already written in the law. The commission is necessary to start grappling with the country’s finances, Mr. Peters said.
‘Bipartisan Credibility’
Meanwhile, in the upper chamber, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) have sponsored similar legislation to create a national debt commission in the Senate.Writing in a co-authored opinion piece for The Hill, Sens. Manchin and Romney and Reps. Peters and Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) championed the need for a bipartisan fiscal commission.
“Getting out of this mess will require putting aside the political posturing. There are possible solutions that improve our nation’s fiscal future and preserve critical programs, like Medicare and Social Security,” they wrote.
“A bipartisan fiscal commission, like the one we are proposing, is the most practical and immediate chance we have to advance those solutions, address this crisis, and protect seniors.”
Experts have published essays for The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonprofit fiscally conservative think tank, advocating for the establishment of a fiscal commission.
In November 2023, Brian Riedl, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, wrote that a bipartisan commission could “bring bipartisan credibility to a deficit-reduction plan and, thus, encourage public support.”
He also outlined several policy recommendations that could diminish the long-term fiscal shortfall and generate consensus between both parties. These include omitting affluent retirees from Social Security cost-of-living adjustments and boosting Medicare premiums for upper-income retirees.
“A significant number of potentially bipartisan deficit savings are available,” Mr. Riedel said. “Congress needs only the will to tackle the issue, and the mechanism—such as a fiscal commission—to build a deal.”
While it might not solve the nation’s fiscal challenges, the initiative “would give the country’s dire fiscal situation the proper attention it deserves,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
“In the last two decades, the national debt has tripled as a share of the economy, and modest surpluses at the start of the millennium have been replaced with $2 trillion annual deficits,” she said in a statement.
A Look at the National Debt
As of Jan. 19, the national debt stood above $34.07 trillion, an $82 billion increase since the beginning of the year, according to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Debt to the Penny dataset.Washington is spending a substantial sum on servicing the national debt. In the first three months of FY 2024, net interest payments totaled $216 billion, making it the fourth-largest budgetary item, behind Social Security, national defense, and health.
If gross interest on Treasury debt securities—semi-annual interest payment to trust funds investing in special issue par value government securities—is included in the final tally, then interest payments have exceeded $500 billion.
“In my first two years, I reduced the debt by $1.7 trillion. No president has ever done that,” President Biden said at a May 2023 news briefing.
Under the current administration, the national debt has rocketed by more than $6.3 trillion.
