GOP for years lectured Democrats over spending and debt.
In 2011, with the nation still climbing back from the Great Recession, Republicans threatened global markets by refusing to raise the federal debt limit unless President Barack Obama and the Democrats agreed to steep across-the-board spending cuts for years to come.
Eight years later — and $7.7 trillion more in debt — President Trump and GOP lawmakers have agreed this week to lift the debt ceiling again without a fuss, and with hundreds of billions in new spending on top of it.
Under Trump, federal debt has surged to $22 trillion and the annual deficit is expected to reach $1 trillion this fiscal year. Trump claimed during the 2016 campaign that he could eliminate the debt in eight years; instead, it has grown $3 trillion during his tenure.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who made fiscal responsibility a cornerstone of his 2012 presidential bid against Obama, declined to comment Tuesday on the pact or on the GOP’s drift. “I really don’t have anything for you today on that,” he said. Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), a Senate Budget Committee member and Trump loyalist, said: “There are a lot of things in it I don’t like, but it’s a compromise deal.”
For both parties, the deal is the culmination of years of slipping fiscal discipline in Washington.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/were-like-thelma-and-louise-republicans-shrug-at-deficits-under-trump/2019/07/23/cdc5c330-ad5d-11e9-8e77-03b30bc29f64_story.html?utm_term=.5e891b29d9cf
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