The House has sent a budget reconciliation package to the Senate that will add trillions to the national debt. Will the Senate’s purported fiscally conservative Republicans approve the bill?

GOP leaders made balanced budgets a governing credo for a generation. As recently as 2024, the Senate adopted a Republican resolution calling the debt “unsustainable, irresponsible, and dangerous.”

Yet now the same party is guiding a budget through Congress that would increase primary deficits by about $3.3 trillion over the next decade, far surpassing even the borrowing allowed by its own budget blueprint.

The numbers are brutal. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this year’s deficit at $1.9 trillion, with debt projected to rise from 100 percent of GDP this year to an unprecedented 118 percent by 2035. As of April, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s deficit tracker indicates a $1.1 trillion shortfall, which is 13 percent larger than the same period last year.

Furthermore, this exceptional surge in deficit financing is happening during a time of full employment and steady growth. This is unprecedented.

Interest payments on the national debt now surpass defense spending and, if projected trends continue, they will match........

© The Hill