{"id":22795,"date":"2024-01-18T03:49:32","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T09:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=22795"},"modified":"2024-01-18T03:49:38","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T09:49:38","slug":"us-house-panel-considers-commission-to-tackle-nations-soaring-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=22795","title":{"rendered":"US House panel considers commission to tackle nation&#8217;s soaring debt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Bipartisan legislation to create a commission charged with taming the $34 trillion U.S. national debt is set to advance this week in a House of Representatives panel, as lawmakers battle over federal spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The House Budget Committee on Tuesday said it will hold a work session at 10 a.m. (1500 GMT) on Thursday to debate and potentially vote on the &#8220;Fiscal Commission Act of 2023,&#8221; just weeks after Washington&#8217;s total public&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/markets\/us\/rising-us-debt-stokes-calls-congress-special-fiscal-commission-2023-11-21\/\">debt breached the $34 trillion mark<\/a>, putting it at more than 122% of GDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Advertisement \u00b7 Scroll to continue<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Congress last summer brought the nation to the brink of a globally destabilizing default in a showdown over the federal debt ceiling, and will confront a fresh debt deadline at the end of this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Backers of the bill hope it could help make the national debt a topic of greater discussion during the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/topic\/event\/us-elections\/\">2024 presidential campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;While a debt commission is not a panacea to fix all our financial problems, it can offer a productive, de-politicized forum for educating the public and identifying consensus solutions for addressing our growing deficits and long-term unfunded liabilities,&#8221; Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington said in a statement to Reuters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The move follows&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/markets\/us\/top-us-credit-rating-under-watch-debt-ceiling-talks-drag-2023-05-26\/\">Moody&#8217;s decision in mid-November to lower<\/a>&nbsp;its outlook on the U.S. credit rating to &#8220;negative&#8221; from &#8220;stable,&#8221; citing &#8220;political polarization in Congress&#8221; over ways to address the debt and the costs of financing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Similar bipartisan legislation was introduced late last year by retiring Senators Joe Manchin, a Democrat, and Mitt Romney, a Republican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">While the House and Senate bills have some bipartisan support, there are significant pockets of resistance. Some liberal Democrats argue that such a commission would be a &#8220;back-door&#8221; way of cutting benefits in the popular Social Security and Medicare retirement and healthcare programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The panel would be charged with recommending spending and revenue proposals to grapple with a ballooning national debt that has been fueled by deficit spending and tax cuts over the past few decades. Even with a commission, Congress and the White House would have the final say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Republican Representative Bill Huizenga introduced the legislation in November with bipartisan support. He was joined by Democratic Representative Scott Peters, a member of the Budget Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/us-house-panel-considers-commission-tackle-nations-soaring-debt-2024-01-16\/\">reuters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Bipartisan legislation to create a commission charged with taming the $34 trillion U.S. national debt is set to advance this week in a House of Representatives panel, as lawmakers battle over federal spending. The House Budget Committee on Tuesday said it will hold a work session at 10 a.m. (1500 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":22796,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1873,21502,2707],"class_list":["post-22795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-commission","tag-house","tag-panel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22795"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22797,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22795\/revisions\/22797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}