A serious case of fiscal amnesia may soon be sweeping the GOP.

For eight years, Republicans hammered President Barack Obama for exploding the national debt. But now a GOP-led spending spree is coming, with Donald Trump riding to the White House on trillion-dollar promises and a Republican Congress that looks likely to do his bidding. It’s a potential echo of the last time Republicans ran Washington, when then-Vice President Dick Cheney memorably remarked, “Deficits don’t matter.”


Trump campaigned heartily on a spending splurge and nothing he’s said since his shocking election suggests he will reverse course. Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, are papering over divisions with the man who frequently tossed party orthodoxy aside on the trail.

“There is now a real risk that we will see an onslaught of deficit-financed goodies — tax cuts, infrastructure spending, more on defense — all in the name of stimulus, but which in reality will massively balloon the debt,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The non-partisan group estimated Trump’s campaign proposals would increase the national debt by a whopping $5.3 trillion over the next decade. That would make the debt as a share of the economy rise from nearly 77 percent to 105 percent, a potentially dangerous level for the government.

Not all of the promises Trump made on the trail will be enacted, of course, but even just a few would mean a flood of red ink. A top Trump priority — major infrastructure spending — is one of them.

“We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals,” Trump said in his victory speech last week. “We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none.”

Obama has long sought infrastructure investments, but he was consistently rebuffed by GOP lawmakers. Now that they’ve got one of their own in the White House, Republicans in Congress are likely to play ball. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Monday that an infrastructure bill that could win bipartisan backing was indeed possible. Trump’s plans call for $1 trillion to be spent over a decade, in part through public-private partnerships and private investments.

House Speaker Paul Ryan is downplaying any differences between GOP lawmakers and the president-elect on the question of curbing entitlement spending. | AP Photo

Trump has also vowed to “rebuild” the U.S. military and eliminate the stiff caps on Pentagon spending that Congress enacted in the 2011 Budget Control Act. That law was the result of tough negotiations between GOP lawmakers and Obama to raise the debt limit and curb rising federal deficits. Democrats have long sought to permanently break through the caps, while Republicans have resisted in the name of fiscal responsibility; but perhaps with a Republican president they would relent.

Trump and congressional Republicans are also planning enormous tax cuts for businesses and individuals — with high-income households getting the biggest benefits. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center estimated Trump’s tax plan would increase the federal debt by $7.2 trillion over a decade. In comparison, the huge George W. Bush-era tax cuts cost less than $2 trillion. House GOP leadership is already on board the Trump tax train.

“Donald Trump put out a tax plan in the campaign that is almost the same as the tax plan [of] House Republicans,” Speaker Paul Ryan told Fox News’ Bret Baier last week. “We are absolutely on the same page on reforming the tax code.”

Ryan is also downplaying any differences between GOP lawmakers and the president-elect on the question of curbing entitlement spending. Trump made an ostentatious show of his support for Social Security during the presidential campaign, suggesting he was a different type of Republican, opposed to attempts to reform the popular retirement program.

Ryan, meanwhile, made his name in Washington as a fiscal hawk and has consistently warned of Social Security’s future insolvency. But when asked about it by Baier, Ryan demurred. “Frankly, the fiscal pressures are mounting faster on health care than they are on Social Security,” Ryan said.

AshLee Strong, a Ryan spokesperson, said House Republicans are only just beginning to talk with Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence about next year’s agenda.

Trump’s bombastic campaign promises also included a vow to reduce budget deficits, in part through robust economic growth. But few budget analysts take that claim seriously.

“Simply put, there's no way to make these numbers add up without some extreme growth assumptions,” said Phil LaRue, an advisor to the deficit-minded Concord Coalition.

Democrats are not terribly surprised that Republicans are shifting their focus away from the debt as the GOP prepares to assume complete control of Washington.

“It’s always been the case that Republicans put tax breaks for the wealthy before addressing the deficit,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

“We still haven’t seen the interplay between the congressional Republican agenda and the Trump agenda,” added Van Hollen, who was elected to represent Maryland in the Senate last week. “But clearly Republicans seem to be getting collective amnesia when it comes to long-term deficit and debt issues.”