Democrats Hope Calling Out Republicans on the National Debt Can Stop the Reconciliation Bill

Get ready to hear a lot from Democrats about the national debt.

House Republicans’ reconciliation bill extending tax cuts and slashing social safety net programs doesn’t get close to balancing America’s spending and revenues. It would add as much as $3 trillion to deficits over the next decade instead, while also hiking the debt ceiling by $4 trillion.

Democrats see that as a potent argument against the legislation as it heads to the Senate for consideration.

“To be pushing a bill right now that would add $2.7 trillion to our national debt is just outrageous,” New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker said this week during a hearing.

Republican lawmakers who have decried ballooning deficits for years largely voted for the legislation this week, prompting mockery from Democratic lawmakers and aides. In response, Democratic lawmakers are increasingly focusing on the bill’s impact on deficits, even though many Democratic Party campaign operatives don’t see it as a compelling public message.

It was Rep. Greg Landsman’s main line of attack against the bill during an interview with NOTUS earlier this week: “They’re adding trillions of dollars to the national debt,” said Landsman, an Ohio Democrat. “There are Republicans who don’t want to add trillions of dollars to the debt. And for some of these folks, it’s core to who they are, especially deficit hawks. It is core to why they are in Congress, to stop the deficit spending. So how can they ultimately vote for this bill?”

Democrats have wrapped concerns like “fiscal responsibility” into their broader condemnation of the bill’s spending cuts. During floor debate ahead of the bill’s passage, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called it “an assault on the economy, an assault on health care, an assault on nutritional assistance, an assault on tax fairness and an assault on fiscal responsibility.”

Jeffries’ list of complaints aligns with the Democratic campaign affiliate House Majority Forward’s messaging guidance earlier this week, which urged the party to mostly focus on the provisions that poll most poorly in the reconciliation bill, including cuts to food assistance and Medicaid.

Focusing solely on deficit increases “is less compelling than direct economic consequences like cuts to Medicaid or higher grocery costs for middle-class families,” the memo reads.

While talking about benefit cuts may be a more compelling argument to voters, bringing up deficit increases may be more likely to influence their Republican colleagues. Several GOP senators are raising concerns about the bill’s price tag, resisting the administration’s attempts to win them over without substantive changes.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson told NOTUS the deficit spending in the bill is “completely unacceptable” and “a nonstarter.”

“This is going to be a discussion here. Rhetoric, which is what the ‘big, beautiful bill’ is, versus reality,” he told NOTUS. “And the reality is stark, and the numbers are on my side in terms of supporting us actually being serious. What good is a majority if you don’t actually use it to try to save this country?”

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said he would only consider voting for it if leaders remove the debt ceiling hike.

“We’ve never, ever voted to raise the debt ceiling this much,” he told reporters. “It’ll be a historic increase. … It’s not conservative; I can’t support it.”

Rep. Thomas Massie, one of only two Republicans to vote against the bill in the House this week, also said it demonstrated the party isn’t serious about cutting spending.

“If we were serious, we’d be cutting spending now, instead of promising to cut spending years from now,” he wrote on X, also describing it as “Biden levels of spending and bigger deficits.”

Some Republicans are brushing off Democrats’ criticism.

Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina argued that Democratic concerns about the debt aren’t coming from a pure place.

“They’re doing it because they hate Donald Trump. They don’t care about the budget,” he told NOTUS this week. “They don’t care about spending. We’re trying to turn the curve. I hope we do that.”

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Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS. Em Luetkemeyer, a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow, contributed reporting.