Debt ceiling deal should include spending cuts across the entire government 

Americans know that if they are running out of money to pay their creditors and reduce their debts, spending cuts need to be made somewhere so they don’t go into default. That helps to explain why a CNN poll released on May 23, 2023, found that 60 percent of those surveyed agree that raising the debt ceiling should be accompanied by spending cuts. While negotiations continue between the White House and Congress to increase the debt limit, whether the deadline is June 1, 2023, or a week later, the discussions should be broadened to include every dollar spent by the federal government. 

Since 1978, the debt ceiling has been increased 61 times, 32 of which included spending cuts or other legislation, while a “clean” debt ceiling was agreed to 29 times. The largest cuts were in the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, which included 10-year spending caps with separate limits for defense and non-defense spending. The architect of the Obama administration’s agreement with Congress on the BCA was then-Vice President Joe Biden.   

The House passed its debt ceiling bill on April 26, 2023, and exempted defense spending. Since defense constitutes 47 percent of discretionary spending, the spending cuts fall disproportionately on nondefense agencies and programs.   

The first place to start cutting every area of discretionary spending would be to eliminate earmarks. Citizens Against Government Waste’s 2023 Congressional Pig Book exposed $26.1 billion in earmarks, $10.2 billion of which is in defense spending. For example, there is a record $50 million earmarked for the Starbase Youth Program, which helps teach science technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to at-risk youth at or near military bases around the country. An April 2018 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that $2.9 billion was spent in FY 2016 across 13 agencies for 163 STEM programs. The DOD should not be one of those agencies. 

The DOD is the only federal agency that has not passed a clean audit, and it is therefore not credible to claim nothing can be cut from the agency’s budget. And even when the DOD wants to cut spending, members of Congress step in to earmark funds. The latest example is the alternative engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, which the DOD did not include in its FY 2024 budget and the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee did not include in its markup but could be earmarked in the full committee or when the Senate considers its version of the legislation. The Air Force estimated that development costs alone would be $6.7 billion and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall testified during an April 18, 2023, Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee hearing that it “was definitely something that was not affordable.” He also noted that the alternative engine would only work in one of the three versions of the F-35. There could not be a more obvious candidate for cutting spending at the DOD.  

There are hundreds of recommendations to cut spending from the GAO, agency offices of inspectors general, the Congressional Budget Office, and non-governmental organizations. Prior to President Biden, every president since Ronald Reagan provided a list of spending cuts, consolidations, and terminations with their annual budgets, and many of those recommendations, including from the Obama administration, are unfortunately still valid.

Another area ripe for consolidation is broadband spending. According to a May 31, 2022, GAO report, there are currently more than 130 broadband programs across 15 federal agencies. Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr has said there is up to $800 billion available for infrastructure programs, including broadband, which is far more than enough to connect every unserved or underserved household and business throughout the country. Despite the plethora of opportunities to find money for broadband deployment, 10 members of Congress, three Republicans and seven Democrats, earmarked $9.5 million for eight broadband projects in the Agriculture Appropriations bill. One project, Co-Mo Connect project in Missouri, got a $960,112 earmark even though it had already received almost $22 million from the Federal Communications Commission’s Connect America Fund in 2019. 

The negotiations over the debt ceiling should include cuts in wasteful spending across the federal government. And by calling for a ban on earmarks, House Republicans would immediately eliminate more than $26 billion, improve their credibility on spending cuts, and get rid of low priority and unnecessary projects. There is no lack of ideas for where to cut spending without adversely impacting families, businesses, and the economy. There is, as always, a lack of will to agree to these cuts by members of Congress who have never seen a tax dollar that they do not want to spend.   

Tom Schatz is president of Citizens Against Government Waste.