The Republican-led Congress has been a “bitter disappointment,” the Bloomberg Editorial Board argues. It points to the body’s “lackluster effort,” its “ham-handed” cuts to medical coverage, and how it dropped much of its agenda “in favor of writing big checks.”
“After two years in charge of a unified federal government, what has the Republican Party accomplished? If current polling is any indication, not enough,” the Editorial Board writes. It points to the Senate’s $70 billion budget reconciliation bill — which passed the House of Representatives — “that will mostly add to a glut of immigration funding.”
This GOP Congress has “fattened the budgets of immigration authorities while doing little to fix the broken incentives that lure unauthorized migrants in the first place (let alone to rationalize the legal immigration system).”
The Board accuses Congress of pledging to fight inflation, while standing “aside as the president has imposed a costly global tariff regime. After coming into office promising ‘massive reform’ to the health-care system, they’ve mostly cut coverage in ham-handed ways.”
Saying Congress “has done nothing to rein in long-term liabilities,” the Board calls the trajectory of the federal government’s debt “unsustainable.”
“More egregiously, the party that flatters itself as fiscally responsible hasn’t lifted a finger to rein in budget deficits,” it writes. “Last year’s tax cuts alone increased projected deficits by $4.7 trillion over the next decade. For all the turmoil engendered by the Department of Government Efficiency, the country’s spending problem has worsened decisively.”
The Board warns that the midterms are just months away, and Congress shouldn’t “congratulate themselves prematurely” — but it could take several steps.
Among them, it could “commit to respecting the Federal Reserve’s independence under new Chairman Kevin Warsh,” and promote permitting reform “to slash red tape, reduce costs, and accelerate energy and infrastructure projects.”
Congress could work on expanding housing supply and medical transparency, or “remind the president that his tariffs are harming workers and inflating consumer prices.”
And in an apparent rebuke, Bloomberg writes, “With federal spending threatening to slow income growth and drive up interest rates — or indeed prompt a fiscal crisis — they could take the minimum step of empaneling a commission to ponder the problem.”
