Editorial: The sea of red ink continues to proliferate

Las Vegas Review-Journal, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Oct 10, 2025

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As Democrats and Republicans dig in during the latest government shutdown, the Congressional Budget Office released its monthly spending report on Wednesday projecting that the federal budget deficit for fiscal 2025 will run $1.8 trillion.

The good news is that the amount of red ink shrunk by about $8 billion from fiscal 2024. The bad news is that this is considered good news. The national debt now rushes toward $38 trillion. The report also notes that interest paid on the debt topped $1 trillion for the first time in fiscal 2025, which ended Oct. 1.

The deficit is now running roughly 6 percent of gross domestic product, a number never before hit during peacetime, save for the pandemic. And, once again, the numbers reveal that the nation has a spending problem, not a revenue shortage. Tax receipts in fiscal 2025 soared by $300 billion, but increased outlays gobbled it all up.

“While the deficit didn’t rise from last year, it didn’t fall either, and we continue to borrow far too much,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement. “We are on track to borrow nearly $2 trillion per year for the next decade. How can anyone think this is sustainable?”

It is against this backdrop that Congress is deadlocked on a continuing resolution to fund the government. Democrats refuse to provide the votes to keep Washington open unless Republicans agree to make permanent billions in temporary health care spending intended to ease COVID’s economic disruption. But the pandemic ended two years ago. As the latest deficit numbers show, responsible fiscal policy doesn’t involve etching in stone stopgap safety net measures implemented during a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Meanwhile, Congress fiddles while structural defects in Medicare and Social Security threaten to engulf the programs. Current figures have the reserves in the Social Security trust fund running dry by 2034, with Medicare following suit just two years later.

President Donald Trump has made headway cutting spending at various federal agencies. Spending at the Education Department fell by $234 billion, according to the CBO report. More must be done.

Ultimately, however, Trump and Congress must get serious about addressing the debt and shoring up foundering entitlement programs. Procrastination in the name of political survival is hardly the approach of serious statesmen and stateswomen.

When the shutdown ends, Congress should — at a minimum — empanel a fiscal commission to concoct a road map that does what our elected officials refuse to do: set the nation on a sustainable financial course.

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