A government shutdown will likely be averted by continuing the status quo, as excessive US deficits drive up debt and President Trump’s tariffs and constantly changing policies are wreaking havoc on the economy. A continuing resolution (CR) is yet another stopgap spending bill maintaining the status quo and another missed opportunity to wean Washington off its spending addiction. Check out my BBC interview from this morning, where I discussed these issues.
With annual deficits approaching $2 trillion, Washington should be reining in discretionary spending—returning to pre-pandemic levels, renewing spending caps, and returning responsibilities back to states, localities, and the private sector for matters best addressed by those immediately affected. Too much power has been centralized in Washington to the detriment of American freedom and prosperity.
Republicans even took this opportunity to make it harder for Congress to rein in President Trump’s tariff abuses. Generally, Congress can repeal the president’s actions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)—which Trump has been abusing for his tariffs on Canada, China, and Mexico—by using a privileged resolution, which doesn’t need to go through the committee process and is directly brought to the floor. However, as Reason’s Eric Boehm explains, GOP House members included a provision in the routine rules resolution accompanying the stopgap bill that blocks the possibility of using a privileged resolution for the remainder of this congressional session. This significantly limits Congress’s power to counter the Trump administration’s harmful obsession with trade deficits.
In his recent piece in The Dispatch, Cato’s Scott Lincicome shows there is no empirical evidence that shrinking trade deficits would boost economic growth, employment, or manufacturing output—reasons protectionists use to justify Trump’s trade war.
Going back to the CR, both Republicans and Democrats took the easy way out: Republicans by locking in Biden-era spending levels, and Democrats by choosing to go along to avoid putting the executive Office of Management and Budget in charge of determining which government functions and personnel are ‘essential.’ For more on what’s included in the CR, watch my C‑SPAN interview below.