Busy Agenda Awaits Lawmakers Post-Thanksgiving Break

As the national debt continues to grow — now closing in on $34 trillion — so does momentum for creating a special commission to address the problem. 

It wouldn’t be the first time Congress has done this, but some believe, with the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio at 120 percent — the highest it’s been since World War 2 — this is the most critical time.

Rep. Jodey Arrington, (r) Budget committee chairman, "I believe this is our generation's world war,” said Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX), House Budget Committee Chairman, “and the cost of losing this war will be catastrophic and irreparable."

At a Budget Committee hearing Wednesday,  Arrington and members heard testimony about bipartisan legislation that some believe would help win that war.

"A bipartisan commission that could examine what we can do to get some fiscal restraint,” said committee member Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK2) in an interview Wednesday, “and lead us to a path of solvency."

A bipartisan, bicameral commission that, Senator James Lankford believes would help Congress attack some of the major fiscal concerns, such as tax policy and solvency of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. "It has worked effectively in the past, it’s also failed in the past as well,” Langford (R-OK) said in an interview, “but it gives us a process to be able to at least get the conversation going."

 The committee was looking at three different proposals to create commissions, but all sharing various aspects in common, perhaps most significantly stabilizing the debt-to-GDP ratio at no more than 100 percent in about 10 years and guaranteeing solvency of the trust funds for 75 years. "This isn’t the silver bullet,” said Brecheen, “the silver bullet is for Congress to have the courage to start cutting."

But putting the decision of where to cut in the hands of a small commission is why some are voicing skepticism. "There already is a bipartisan forum where these decisions should get made,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) at the hearing, “it's called Congress, and we shouldn't pass the buck to a fiscal commission that we ourselves don't want to do."