continued from page gress has ….
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gress has passed $12.5 trillion in emergency spending for wars, disasters, pandemics, financial crises and in some cases things that were emergencies in name only, like $450 million for space exploration. Almost none of it was offset. If you add $2.5 trillion in interest to the spending, the total amounts to one-third of today’s debt.
Democrats are quick to note that the same Republican majority that voted for cuts to the growth of Medicaid and food-assistance spending (on the grounds that the country simply can’t afford them) is now being asked to approve $200 billion in war spending with no offsetting savings in sight. I’m sure the Democrats think they have a real “gotcha” moment on their hands. They don’t. Providing for the national defense is an explicit constitutional obligation of the federal government in a way that Medicaid is not.
This distinction matters, but the argument has its limits. First, even constitutionally acceptable spending must be paid for. The fiscal argument for offsetting a war’s costs doesn’t rest on one’s view of Medicaid, but on the knowledge that we’re inching toward the point where investors could be reluctant to lend the government money at preferential rates because they have lost confidence in Washington’s ability to repay them without resorting to inflation. It is also the right thing to do for future generations who will face higher inflation or taxes.
Second, offsetting the war spending creates necessary discipline that pure borrowing does not. When Congress must find $300 billion in cuts, it’s forced to ask whether every one of those dollars is actually necessary (or is actual war spending). Such discipline, I hope, will strip out the farm bailouts, the specialinterest provisions and the other non-emergency items that always creep into these spending bills precisely because no one is checking everything that gets through when it’s labeled “emergency” or “national security.”
Offsetting $300 billion may sound daunting, but it’s worth some perspective. The government will spend at least $94 trillion over the next decade. The continued from page
extra cost of the Iran campaign amounts to threetenths of 1% of that total. Start by targeting the taxpayer cash being stolen outright through fraud, such as by autism-therapy providers in Indiana recently exposed for billing $340,000 per child per year. That’s imperative, but the bigger opportunity lies in reforming health programs that consume an ever-growing share of the budget while delivering their greatest benefits not to patients but to hospitals, insurers and states. In the end, the $300 billion question isn’t really about Iran. It’s about whether Congress will admit that nothing the federal government does is free, and that the bill always comes due. The only choice is who pays for it and when.
Veronique de Rugy is the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. To find out more about Veronique de Rugy and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators. com. COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS. COM
