Should Democrats Rescue Drowning Congressional Republicans?
Yes. Because eventually, voters reward the grown-ups.
Every federal budget, including the one that the GOP released today, reveals an administration’s true values and priorities. Most reflect trade-offs on three dimensions:
Debt. Budgets tell us whether elected political leaders prefer to pay as they spend or to borrow money and defer the pain of raising taxes or cutting spending. Borrowing isn’t always bad. It can make sense to grow demand in a deep recession or to use debt to dig out of a national emergency like war or pandemic. It can make sense to borrow to fund long-term investments. But every politician is tempted to put the federal budget on the national credit card and pay later. Everyone favors fiscal responsibility until budget time.
Investment. Budgets tell us how much an administration will invest in growth and how much growth each dollar they invest produces. Budgets that invest wisely in things like infrastructure, scientific research, or education can help generate future growth and tax revenues. Many of these investments return $5 for every $1 we spend (on the other hand, advocates for every public expense try to sell it as an “investment”). We are not as good at investing as we need to be, which makes all investments harder to justify. Some of this is public accounting, which does a poor job of separating investments from expenditures.
Income equality. Governments transfer money from richer people to poorer ones in order to maintain a safety net and improve economic equality. Budgets tell us how much an administration values support for people at the bottom – and what kind of support they value. As always, governments can spend unwisely for admirable purposes; more support does not always produce better outcomes.
The Trump Trifecta
Few budgets work on all three dimensions. It is rare to see a federal budget that simultaneously pays its own way, makes the economy more efficient, and supports low-income citizens. It is even rarer to spend over $6 trillion and achieve none of these things, but Republicans seem to be giving it a go. There is a decent chance that the budget they pass will blow up the deficit, make the economy less efficient with tariffs, and grow inequality by using tax cuts for the rich to fund benefit cuts for the poor. Call it the Trump trifecta.
The reason that Republicans may hit the trifecta is that they start with a single North Star commitment: preserving the Trump tax cuts that even Trump is no longer committed to. Large swaths of Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) are set to expire at year’s end. The Bipartisan Policy Center and the Congressional Budget Office estimate that allowing them to expire will cost $4-4.5 trillion over the next decade, even accounting for the increase in economic activity from a tax cut.
That’s real money, and Republicans are flailing over how to pay for it. Republicans may be united in their wish not to allow the TCJA to lapse, but they are divided on everything else. Some want to slash safety net programs to make the tax cuts permanent, but those in swing districts blanch at the prospect of deep cuts to Medicaid or nutrition assistance. Red states like Georgia and West Virginia have benefited from the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy investments, which make them hard to cut. Other representatives want headline-grabbing tweaks like eliminating taxes on overtime or tips. Blue-state Republicans want to juice the state and local tax deduction, which benefits voters in high-tax states that are typically Democratic. Trump’s preference for transactions and indifference to the details of lawmaking, especially complex budgets, have paralyzed Republicans in Congress.
Congressional Democrats are understandably tempted to pass the popcorn, sit back, and enjoy the GOP food fight. That’s a mistake. This is the moment for Democrats to do the unexpected: steal the mantle of fiscal sanity with a centrist budget that appeals to swing voters and rural communities.
Kids, Climate, and Care
For both tactical and strategic reasons, Democrats should offer a plan of their own. Not a maximalist wish list, but a credible, targeted alternative to GOP madness. Biden and Harris already signaled support for extending TCJA provisions for households earning under $400,000-a move that would shield the middle class from tax hikes, sidestep draconian spending cuts, and look downright responsible next to the GOP’s deficit-swelling ambitions. Start there. Then avoid savaging Medicare or scientific research and drive up the national debt substantially less than the Republican plan. It’s a low bar.
Democrats could pair middle-class tax relief with modest tax increases on high earners, or extend expiring health insurance subsidies. They may be able to revive the child tax credit, but they cannot prepare a wish-list budget. The goal is not to outbid Republicans with a Santa Claus budget, but to present a plausible, centrist path that might tempt a handful of Republican defectors or, at the very least, clarify the stakes for voters.
Barack Obama understood something about these moments that Joe Biden often forgot: in an era of polarization and gridlock, the grown-ups in the room are more likely to win the long game. A Democratic “alt-budget” wouldn’t just be a legislative tactic. It would be a signal, a way to reclaim the mantle of fiscal responsibility, to show voters that Democrats can govern with common sense, majoritarian views, and move the nation beyond the exhausted politics of maximal demands and minimal results. It will also help Democrats turn the page on much of the politically toxic Biden era.
Will it work? Democrats should find out. Dems are in the minority and worried about holding their own fractious coalition together. But the strategic value of an alt-budget is to force a contrast, not to pretend that unity exists when it does not. The point is to reclaim fiscal responsibility, not as a retreat, but as a reinvention. Democrats need to stand for fiscally sane liberalism that targets real growth while investing in kids, climate, and care. It’s not enough for Democrats to end Trump’s zombie tax cuts – the party needs to show that it can spend smarter.
In politics, as in music, sometimes the familiar presented with a new twist becomes a hit. And right now, many Americans would welcome a combination of common sense and a more responsible attitude towards governing.