OPINION:
For years, Republicans have warned that Washington’s spending habits imperil America’s future. Yet too often, when the moment arrives to impose real discipline, our party blinks. Republicans accurately diagnose the disease but often cry in protest like a small child when the time arrives to take the medicine.
The most recent example of this is how too many congressional Republicans are clamoring for the need to “do something” on the expanded COVID-19 Obamacare subsidies. Doing something, in this case, means turning off planned spending reductions and therefore allocating additional taxpayer money for an expanded portion of a law they used to say they hated (Obamacare). The subsidies were enacted by Democrats for temporary pandemic relief.
Republican intestinal fortitude on keeping planned spending cuts in place will be tested again next year when the inevitable and insufferable debate heats up about whether the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s scheduled spending reductions should go into effect in an election year. How the party handles this matter will reveal whether Republicans are finally prepared to break spending patterns.
The temptation to retreat is already visible. As spending reductions scheduled for 2026 approach — reductions Congress deliberately enacted and carefully phased in — some will argue that an election year is no time to cut spending. We have heard this refrain since time immemorial: Fiscal restraint is admirable in theory but too dangerous politically in practice. This mindset repeatedly sabotages conservatives when the American people entrust them with power.
Nothing illustrates this better than the infamous “doc fix.” In the 1990s, lawmakers promised to restrain runaway Medicare spending, but every time the scheduled cuts loomed, Congress panicked and postponed them. What began as a single temporary override became an annual ritual of a bipartisan capitulation, hollowing out the very reform Congress itself had championed. The savings existed only on paper; in reality, they were never allowed to materialize.
Variations of the “doc fix” mentality have plagued conservatives ever since. When Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought implemented long-overdue rightsizing reforms inside federal agencies, Congress intervened to undo much of the progress before taxpayers could benefit. The Department of Government Efficiency’s cost-efficiency measures triggered the same reaction. Today, incredibly, some Republicans appear open to extending the expanded Obamacare subsidies the Democrats themselves designed to expire. This move would cement higher federal spending indefinitely.
The pattern is unmistakable: Moments before reductions finally commence, Republicans find a reason to disarm them.
The spending reductions embedded in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act were designed to restore integrity to the federal balance sheet and reintroduce accountability to infinitely expanding programs. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes more than $1.2 trillion in federal spending reductions over the next decade, a $3,570 deficit reduction per American.
Conservatives know where uncontrolled mandatory spending leads: swelling deficits, a government permanently living on borrowed money and an economy increasingly distorted by federal promises it cannot keep. For years, Republicans have pledged to confront these realities. Indeed, they have done so — but so far, only on paper, once again. The question is simply whether Republicans in Congress have the nerve to allow the legislation they passed to take effect.
Voters respect clarity and conviction. When Republicans vow, over and over, to rein in spending but then fold at the first hint of discomfort, it becomes the fiscal equivalent of breaking President George H.W. Bush’s “Read my lips” pledge. If Republicans chicken out, they will likely pay a price in 2026 similar to the one Bush paid in 1992.
The surest way to earn the trust of the American people is also the simplest: Keep your word. Stand by the savings. Resist the urge to tinker, delay or redefine. Do not allow lobbyists, interest groups or media fearmongering to shake your resolve. A conservative movement that cannot defend the reforms it has already enacted will never muster the courage to pass the deeper structural changes our fiscal future demands.
If Republicans want to demonstrate that we are serious about limiting government and protecting future generations from unsustainable debt, this is the moment to prove it. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act gives Congress a golden opportunity to show the American people it is capable of doing the right thing, even when it is also the hard thing.
Don’t blink. Let the spending cuts stand.
• Paul Teller is president of Teller Strategies and senior adviser at Advancing American Freedom, the conservative advocacy group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence. John Shelton is director of policy at Advancing American Freedom.
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