Congress kicks debt can down the road, again

The U.S. House of Representatives on July 3 passed President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), with all but two Republicans voting for it and all Democrats voting against it.

All four members of Arkansas’ House delegation voted yes. Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman voted for it Tuesday. It now goes to Trump’s desk.

The passage came after the vote was delayed by a marathon speech opposing it by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York.

Jeffries spoke for eight hours and 44 minutes after starting at 3:53 a.m. Arkansas time. Standing behind him were his fellow Democrats. They presumably were better rested than some of their Republican colleagues who spent the night successfully convincing a few holdovers to support the bill.

Earlier this year, Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, spoke for 25 hours and four minutes on the other side of the Capitol. These people have vocal cords made of iron and bladders made of rubber, apparently.

The two are not the only members of Congress displaying remarkable endurance. Rep. Steve Womack, who represents Northwest Arkansas’ 3rd District, presided over the proceedings from the speaker’s chair for 16 hours on Wednesday.

What passed is the Senate version of OBBBA. It was not exactly like the previously passed House version, but it was close enough for House Republicans to support it. Trump wanted the bill done by July 4. It was July 3. That was the rush.

Cotton said on X that: “Republicans are delivering the biggest tax cut for the working class in history while funding border security and the military.”

Boozman said the same and added that the bill deserved praise for “letting tipped and hourly workers, seniors and families keep more of their hard-earned income.” He said the bill eliminates waste, fraud and abuse in assistance programs, reforms the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), and updates U.S. farm policies. Boozman had an outsized role in crafting the latter two as chair of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee.

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has a different opinion. One of the few groups in Washington caring much about balanced budgets, it listed 15 big problems with the bill. We’ll discuss some of them.

The CRFB said the bill will add $4.1 trillion to the national debt through 2034. It’s already $36.2 trillion and growing fast. Rising interest costs on the debt will rise even more to nearly $2 trillion annually. Taxpayers already are spending $1 trillion a year on interest, which is equal to more than $2,900 for every American man, woman and child. Furthermore, OBBBA moves up the date when the Social Security and Medicare trust funds become insolvent by one year, to 2032.

The CRFB also said the bill is “littered with special interest giveaways and new tax and spending entitlements.” It also “[r]elies on numerous budget gimmicks — including arbitrary expirations, phony baselines, and fantastical growth assumptions.”

Those arguments did not carry the day, and so once again lawmakers are passing legislation that will significantly increase the national debt.

Who might have stopped it? Maybe someone who claims to understand the problem. Maybe someone like Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., who led the way in passing OBBBA.

Five months ago, he said this at a Congressional Institute event: “The number one threat to our nation right now is our debt. It’s not China, or Russia, Iran or North Korea. It’s the debt. And we take that very seriously. Congress has kicked the can down the road for decades, and we’re out of road. And so we understand that it’s our responsibility to fix this, to change the trajectory that we’re on, and that will be the greatest lasting contribution that we can make for our children and grandchildren, and for everyone.”

I guess it’s going to be somebody else’s responsibility to change the trajectory. Again.

• A quick update from a recent column: The Senate removed a provision in the House version of OBBBA that would have prohibited states and localities from limiting or regulating artificial intelligence use for 10 years.

Arkansas has such legislation. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and 16 other Republican governors had sent a letter to congressional Republican leaders urging them to remove the moratorium. She had also written an opinion piece in the Washington Post. Attorney General Tim Griffin had likewise signed his name along with 39 other attorneys general to a letter opposing the provision.

The vote was 99-1. Cotton and Boozman were among the 99.

••• Steve Brawner’s column is syndicated to 19 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@ mac.com.