ICYMI: Smucker Calls for Bipartisan Effort to Reduce Deficits and Stabilize Debt

Vice Chair Smucker during House Budget Committee hearing on 3% resolution: “We’ve got to somehow work through the differences we have in policy to begin to address this, to do what’s right for the American people”

WASHINGTON –Rep. Lloyd Smucker (PA-11), vice chair of the House Budget Committee, emphasized the need for bipartisanship in establishing a clear tangible goal to stabilize the nation’s debt: reducing the federal deficit to 3 percent of GDP or less by fiscal year 2036.

On Thursday, the House Budget Committee hosted a hearing, “The Best Metric to Reverse the Curse: A 3% Deficit-to-GDP Path to Fiscal Sustainability.” The hearing examined the nation’s unsustainable debt and the urgent need to adopt a 3% deficit-to-GDP framework—a clear, achievable target to put America on a path to balance.

The 3% deficit-to-GDP benchmark is widely cited by financial experts from both sides of the aisle as a key threshold for fiscal sustainability. Achieving the 3% deficit-to-GDP goal would cut the current deficit—roughly 6 percent of GDP—in half and establish a credible path toward improving the nation’s long-term fiscal outlook. 

Rep. Smucker delivered the following remarks during the hearing:  

“But the real value here today, if we’re able to do this, is that we could reach a point where, on a bipartisan basis, we advance something like this out of the Budget Committee. It may be the first time a bipartisan group of members of Congress put forward a resolution, all coming together and recognizing: ‘We do have a problem. We get it,’ as the chairman said. Both parties have contributed to it. We get it that all solutions have to be on the table.

“If we could just come together and say, ‘We’ve got to somehow work through the differences we have in policy to begin to address this, to do what’s right for the American people, to stabilize our economy, to avert a debt crisis that would hurt the poor we want to help.’ If we can make that statement as a committee on a bipartisan basis and then pass that on the House floor, I think that would be a huge first step...

“If we stay together as a committee and recommend moving this to the floor, recommend that the House take this up, hopefully the Senate takes it up, and we as a body finally realize that when you’re spending a trillion in debt—if you want to help people—think about that. That’s a trillion dollars that could be going to other people. And consider the risk we’re putting ourselves in as a country to be able to address the challenges we have, and the burden we’re placing on future generations.”

Watch Rep. Smucker’s full remarks here.