“It has been said that history repeats itself,” psychoanalyst Theodor Reik (no, not Mark Twain) first observed. “This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes.”
History could and should rhyme loudly when the 118th
Congress
takes office in January, particularly on fiscal issues. In 2011, just as in the year that begins in January, the
Republicans
regained control of the House (after a four-year hiatus) while the White House and the Senate remained in Democratic hands.
To prepare for 2023, House Minority Leader
Kevin McCarthy
(R-CA), or whoever becomes House speaker, should review how Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) managed a similarly contentious House Republican caucus in 2011 when it came to fiscal matters. That way, the official can help policymakers avoid the fiscal crises that threatened the nation that year, secure the position of speaker, and, most importantly, put the country on a sounder fiscal future.
CHIPPED OFF: LAWMAKERS TAKE $186M IN DONATIONS FROM BUSINESS INTERESTS RELIANT ON CHINESE CHIPS
First things first, the speaker should reach out to President
Joe Biden
and congressional leaders from both parties. He should offer to work with them to craft a broad, long-term bipartisan budget agreement that would put the federal government on a path to reduce its debt to an economically manageable 60% of gross domestic product over 10 years (by 2032). Right now, the debt is on track to top 110% in 10 years, which would mark its highest level ever. To craft such an agreement, all parties should put everything “on the table” — taxes, appropriated spending, entitlements, and, yes, even Social Security.
Why would the speaker and the others do it? Maybe because they recognize that our fiscal future and, in turn, our global leadership are increasingly at risk as our debt rises to economically unsustainable levels. Maybe because they realize that protecting our fiscal future requires setting politics aside. The alternative (no such action) means ever-rising debt as a share of GDP, the prospect of economic turmoil, and lower living standards than otherwise for our children and grandchildren.
It’s no easy task, of course. In 2011, Boehner enjoyed a 49-seat margin of Republican control, compared to the 10-ish seat margin that the next speaker will likely oversee. (Similarly, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer [D-NY] will have a one-seat margin of control in the Senate, compared to the 16-seat margin that Sen. Harry Reid [D-NV] enjoyed in 2011.)
Faced with the task of raising the nation’s debt limit in the fall of 2011, House Republicans proposed big spending cuts in return for their support. The 118th Congress, too, will have to raise the debt limit, and House Republicans say that they’ll propose big spending cuts as the price for their votes.
In early 2011, then-House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) proposed “The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America’s Promise,” which included over $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. With Ryan’s proposed deficit reduction all on the spending side, Democrats balked and a summer of stalemate ensued. So, in June, Obama and Boehner began direct talks on a long-term budget plan to address our fiscal problem. With the need to raise the debt limit imminent, and after Standard and Poor’s downgraded America’s credit rating due to the uncertainty about whether policymakers would do so in time, Ryan and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) crafted the Budget Control Act of 2011.
While raising the debt limit and avoiding financial catastrophe, policymakers effectively put the nation’s fiscal future in the hands of a “supercommittee” of lawmakers — a supercommittee that didn’t live up to its name, failing to craft a plan to address our fiscal problems. Before long, policymakers set aside the problem, and lawmakers of both parties focused on the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.
Will the next speaker reach out to the president, as Boehner did to Obama? Will the new Senate and House Budget Committee leaders work together to avoid a financial meltdown, as Murray and Ryan did in 2011? Or has the budget become so politicized, and are the margins of party control so small in the House and Senate, that the president and Congress do not find any common ground, threatening another credit downgrade or, worse, a financial calamity if they don’t rise the debt limit in time?
For McCarthy, Schumer, Biden, and other key policymakers who served in Washington in 2011, the budget battles of that year should prove instructive. Though the parties never came together on a blueprint to address the nation’s long-term fiscal challenges, they did make modest progress and avoided financial catastrophe.
For 2023, House leaders should aim higher but at least match the output of their predecessors.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM RESTORING AMERICA
G. William Hoagland is the senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
