Even Republicans Are All In on Washington’s End-of-Year Spending Spree

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) attend a Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony for U.S. Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police officers in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington on Dec. 6, 2022. Bipartisan and bicameral leadership held the ceremony to award the Congressional Gold Medals to law enforcement officers who protected the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Commentary

The federal government is running annual $1 trillion to $2 trillion budget deficits, which is more than the entire gross domestic product of most nations. But if you believed that Republicans would take a chainsaw to the budget (figuratively) and slash the waste from the federal budget, then to paraphrase the “Oliver Twist” character of Fagin, the miser, “I think you had better think it out again.”