Top House Budget Dem warns deficits, debt must be addressed soon

The ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Rep. John Yarmuth (Ky.), warned in an interview on Friday that the national debt and deficits must be addressed soon, and that the issue with will become a major debate in Congress within the next year.

“The deficit this year will be around $900 billion. Just last year, the deficit was about $600 billion, so we’re 50 percent higher this year. The deficit is going to be over a trillion dollars next year, and the year after that, largely attributable to the reduction of revenue because of the tax cuts that the Congress passed last year,” Yarmuth told Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball on “Rising.”

“So it’s going to be an important debate, and I think the American people, even though some of them got money in their pockets, that they certainly appreciate, understand the danger is long term, and we’re going to see the dangers pretty quickly because you’re also seeing while the debts going up, you’re also seeing an increase in interest rates,” he continued.

Yarmuth went on to say that within the next couple of years, there would be $350 billion dollars in annual debt service.

“Just a couple of years ago it was in the $200 billion range, over the next decade it could get to be as high as eight or $900 billion, which means we would be spending more on interest than we’re spending on defense, Medicaid, many other very significant national expenditures,” he warned.

The congressman will become the chair of the Budget Committee if Democrats take back the House majority in November.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said the budget deficit is expected to approach $1 trillion next year due to the 2017 GOP tax law, as well as a bipartisan deal to increase spending caps for 2018 and 2019.

Longer-term projections say the debt could rise to 200 percent of gross domestic product by 2048, a major increase from current levels of 78 percent.

The main drivers of the nation’s discretionary spending remain mandatory spending programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

— Julia Manchester