(Column by Deroy Murdock, June 6) Fiscal conservatives lately have argued that the federal government should spend as it did before COVID-19 ruined everything.
Thankfully, the global pandemic is a speck in the rear-view mirror. Only a few diehards cling bitterly to their masks and grow misty with lockdown nostalgia.
Restoring spending to its trajectory in Fiscal Year 2019 — the last before COVID wandered out of China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology — could be treacherous, even for die-hard budget hawks.
January 2025’s domestic-discretionary baseline for FY 2026 is $1.897 trillion. In August 2019, it was $1.332 trillion. Adopting the latter would require a one-year, $565 billion spending cut.
Similarly hefty disbursement reductions would continue every year thereafter. Such belt-tightening would hurt. The Congressional Budget Office would have to hire a staff anesthesiologist.
Why not roll spending back to the future? A less painful target would be the outlay totals that CBO foreshadowed for today — but in summer 2019. Congress should write checks at the pace that CBO anticipated for FY 2026, before Earth shut down, and massive expenditures for ventilators, vaccines, Paycheck Protection and the American Rescue Plan drained the Treasury.
Rather than CBO’s January 2025 prediction of $1.897 trillion in domestic discretionary spending for FY 2026, in FY 2019, it foresaw a mere $1.622 trillion in such expenses, starting on October 1. This reasonable fiscal discipline would save taxpayers $275 billion this year. For FY 2027, the relevant figures are $1.951 trillion, $1.661 trillion, and $290 billion.
From FY 2026 through FY 2029, this exercise would curb planned spending from $7.883 trillion to $6.725 trillion. This would spare taxpayers a whopping $1.158 trillion. Rather than bomb America with those Benjamins, as if via B52s, this sum could underwrite national debt reduction, deeper tax cuts, or a big, beautiful combination of both.
President Donald J. Trump and Congressional Republicans could prioritize spending beneath these lower ceilings. They could axe programs that are properly reserved for the states, duplicative, or downright idiotic….. [The full column is at this link.]
