A 12-step program for congressional spendaholics

Members of Congress have a spending problem. Everyone knows it, even though most of our elected representatives are reluctant to admit it. They are addicted to spending taxpayer money.

It is a bipartisan illness. Republicans are as guilty as Democrats. But Republicans used to claim they felt bad about rampant overspending. That has declined in the Trump era.

If, after the midterm election, Republicans keep control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, they may even double down on their spending addiction. President Trump is promising a $5,000 handout for every adult in the country. He has announced one-time payments of $90 to 20.8 million Medicare enrollees. And he’s already started handing out $500 “refund” checks to 950,000 people who bought unsubsidized Affordable Care Act (also known as “ObamaCare”) policies through the federal marketplace.

While a handful of Republicans have pushed back against Trump’s $5,000 handout, it is not clear they will oppose his spending spree if they retain control of Congress. The president may be the worst spendaholic, but congressional Republicans have been his enablers for the last two years.

Even though Democrats have loudly denounced most Republican spending, they were just as bad when they controlled Congress under former President Joe Biden. In his last two years in office, the federal deficit was $1.70 trillion in 2023 and $1.83 trillion in 2024 (with a Republican House). But it was $1.78 trillion in 2025 under Trump and will likely exceed $2 trillion for 2026. If Trump and Republicans were to pass his $5,000 handout next year, his 2027 deficit would likely surpass $3 trillion.

In addition, total federal debt rose by $8 trillion in Biden’s four years, which included expanded pandemic spending. But the deficit was nearly $4 trillion in Trump’s first two years back in office.

Now reports claim that members of Congress want $46 billion in federal funding for some 15,000 earmarks in the next budget. “The requests include hundreds of thousands of dollars for cooking classes for prisoners, millions for a gaming facility and nearly $13 million for horse-related projects, according to Open the Books.”

Of course, Republicans may claim to rediscover their commitment to fiscal responsibility if Democrats take control of Congress in November. But suppressing a spending addiction only when the other party is in power isn’t dealing with the problem.

Members of Congress need an intervention. In that regard, here is a 12-step program for congressional spendaholics — adapted from Alcoholic Anonymous’s nearly 100-year-old 12-step program — to help our elected officials recognize their spending addiction, take responsibility for their actions, and vow to change their ways.

We, the members of Congress, admit we are powerless, and that our willingness to control federal spending has become unmanageable.

We have come to believe that only a power greater than ourselves, the voters, can restore us to sanity.

We must decide to turn our will and our spending addiction over to the limits imposed by the U.S. Constitution.

We have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, and no one likes what we’ve found.

We admit to voters, to ourselves and to anyone else who will listen the exact nature of our wrongs.

We are ready to change our spending habits and remove all these defects of character.

We humbly ask voters to forgive our shortcomings.

We have made a list of all the ways we try to evade the Constitution’s restraints on spending, and it is very long.

We will make direct amends to our constituents by cutting spending instead of raising taxes.

We pledge to continue to take personal inventory, and when we are tempted to overspend again to promptly admit it and seek help.

We will seek, through debate and the budget process, to become more fiscally prudent and abandon our overspending.

If we or any of our elected colleagues stray and begin overspending again, we ask the voters to step in.Please, help us.

As with many types of addiction, congressional spendaholics likely won’t reform on their own. Elections, like the upcoming midterm election, can provide that much-needed intervention. Taxpayers, who ultimately have to pay for congressional spendaholics’ addiction, have to step in and demand change.

With enough political pressure, voters can get Congress to abandon its spending addiction. It won’t be easy, and it will be as painful for the public as it will for the members. But it may be the only way to reform our spending-addicted Congress.

Merrill Matthews is the Texas state chair of Our Republican Legacy.