Tom Zirpoli: Republicans fake concern over the national debt

Jul 01, 2023

It would be great if Republicans were as concerned about the national debt as their rhetoric, but their actions speak louder than their words.

During the recent debt ceiling negotiations between Democrats and Republicans, Republicans won three major concessions. They cut funding for the IRS; add more work requirements to Americans receiving food stamps; and refused to rescind at least some of the tax cuts they passed during then-President Donald Trump's administration.

While they voiced urgent warnings about our nation's debt, these three wins, according to many analyses, will not decrease the national debt. In fact, two of them will increase the debt.

First, we need to address their hypocrisy. According to the Treasury Department, when Trump took office in 2017, the national debt stood at $19.95 trillion. When he left office in 2020, the debt had increased by $7.81 trillion, a 39% increase, to $27.76 trillion. Thus, let the record show that about a quarter of our nation's current debt, $31.5 trillion, was added during the Trump administration.

During Trump's four years in office, Republicans voted to increase the debt ceiling three times without any pre-conditions. In addition, they made the debt worse by cutting taxes for the rich and by slashing corporate tax rates from 35% to 21%. Predictably, with less revenue to cover their spending, the debt increased.

Yet, during the debt ceiling negotiations with Democrats, Republicans refused to reconsider or even adjust any of Trump's tax cuts.

As a result of the $21.4 billion reduction in IRS funding that Republicans won, the Congressional Budget Office stated last week that the IRS would now be able to collect $40.4 billion less in annual revenue, thus increasing the nation's debt.

The only people who benefit from a reduction in IRS funding are tax cheats, especially rich tax cheats because the IRS does not have the personnel to complete tax audits. Remember, between 2010 and 2021, Republicans had already cut about a quarter of the IRS's funding resulting in about 40% fewer agents to investigate tax cheats. This is an ongoing priority for Republicans.

As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat from Rhode Island said, Republicans held our "entire economy hostage" and threatened "to trigger a global financial meltdown" to "protect wealthy tax cheats." Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires group, said, "In a fight they claimed was about shrinking the debt, they decided to prioritize rolling back IRS enforcement funding in a move that will actually increase the debt by billions."

Meanwhile, Republicans were demanding cuts to social programs that mostly benefited poor children, seniors, low-ranking military personnel and veterans.

Their second win was increased work requirements for Americans receiving food stamps. Again, previous experience shows this does little to reduce the national debt and some researchers say it actually increases government costs, especially at the state level.

As people lose federal food support, they turn to state food programs and pantries. Also, most people receiving food stamps are already working, including tens of thousands of low-ranking military personnel.

Writing for The New York Times, Jamelle Bouie found that to keep track of the employment status for everyone receiving benefits, states and the federal government need to spend millions in administrative costs. In Arkansas, for example, Bouie found the state had to add $26 million to its Medicaid administration program after implementing work requirements. Iowa had to add $17 million to administer its new work requirement rules.

Savings from a similar federal effort in 2018 to add work requirements to food stamp recipients were "consumed by new administrative costs for the program," according to a study by the Congressional Budget Office. The net savings was $150 million per year while dumping 1.2 million people, mostly children and senior citizens, from food-stamp rolls.

As the above study by the CBO found, what work requirements do is knock poor people off of food stamp programs — the real goal of Republican work requirements — because many are physically or mentally unable to work, cannot find child care, or for a variety of other legitimate reasons, are temporarily or permanently unemployed.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, about 75% of food-stamp recipients are disabled, children, or senior citizens. Indeed, children make up the majority of Americans who go hungry when food stamps are discontinued. But let's be sure to protect the rich from paying their fair share of taxes.

As for people with disabilities, I can tell you from personal experience as a special educator that most adults with disabilities are thrilled to find a job. Unfortunately, many of them are considered "unemployable" by many employers because of their limited cognitive and/or physical disabilities.

It is a constant challenge for them to find and maintain employment. Even when they do, the jobs are seldom full-time or with benefits. At minimum wage, working perhaps 20 hours per week if they are lucky, they don't make enough to pay rent, never mind put food on their table.

What the debt ceiling negotiations clearly pointed out is that Republican priorities are aimed at taking care of the rich, not lowering the national debt, and certainly not taking care of ordinary Americans. They would rather take food stamps away from poor children than have the rich pay their fair of taxes or, God forbid, have large corporations — who made record profits this year — pay a reasonable and fair amount of taxes.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears Wednesdays. Email him at [email protected].