The two faces of Ben Cline when it comes to deficits, the national debt

The national debt when Donald Trump took office in 2017: $20.2 trillion.

The debt would rise during his first term by $8.2 trillion, then during the four-year term of Joe Biden another $7.8 trillion.

Minor victory there for the Dems, that our guy grew the national debt a tad less than the guy on the other side.

One year into Trump 2.0, we’ve added another $1.9 trillion, to get to, gulp, $37.3 trillion.

And the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, looking at tax cuts for the super-rich embedded in the Big, Beautiful Bill that Ben Cline helped Trump get into law last July, is telling us that by 2036, 10 years from now, we’re going to have national debt in the range of $64 trillion.

I’m sure I’m the only person out there who has noticed that the likes of Cline, who couldn’t talk enough about deficits and the national debt when Biden was in the White House, are playing the spending like drunken sailors narrative quite differently now that we’re back under Trump’s watch.

“With our debt piling up and interest payments skyrocketing, we cannot afford to be caught flat-footed when the next emergency hits,” Cline said last summer, in support of a bipartisan bill, The Fiscal Contingency Preparedness Act, that was introduced in the U.S. House, notably, after Cline, the rest of the House, and the Senate, helped Trump put the country on a faster crash course toward fiscal disaster with the Big, Beautiful Bill thingie.

Update on the progress of this Fiscal Contingency Preparedness Act: there is none.

The bill was introduced on July 23, referred to committee, and has yet to even get a markup.

“Just like households plan ahead for tough times, the federal government must do the same,” Cline said. “Americans deserve a clear picture of how much room we actually have to respond to future crises. Congress must face the facts and make responsible decisions now, before an emergency strikes.”

Contrast this calm, reserved tone to the bombast he offered up upon the passage of The Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, which, predictably, didn’t get anywhere, because, like the Fiscal Contingency Preparedness Act of 2025, it was just political theater.

“President Biden and the Deficit-Loving D.C. Democrats’ inflationary spending has worked to increase our national debt to unsustainable levels – over $31.6 trillion in debt and an annual deficit of nearly $1.5 trillion,” Cline said.

Note: Trump 2.0’s first deficit, again, was $1.9 trillion, which, doing the math, is more than the $1.5 trillion that Cline found utterly objectionable three years ago, when it was a Democrat in the White House.

“While Biden has no plan to avoid debt default, House Republicans are committed to a reasonable, responsible, and sensible solution to our nation’s debt crisis that would limit Washington’s irresponsible spending, save taxpayer dollars, and grow the American economy,” Cline said back in 2023.

Two years before he helped push us closer to the edge of the cliff with the Big, Beautiful Bill.

Wonder why it’s OK with Bennie that the debt is going through the roof, again, under Trump, to the point that he has nary a cross word to say about the Dear Leader, but when it’s Democrats in charge, it’s katy bar the door.

This just in: Ben Cline is a hypocrite.