Trump promised to eliminate the $19 trillion debt in eight years — and left it higher than he found it The Washington Post, 31 March 2016 interview
House Passes Gov’t Funding Bill That Does Nothing To Fix Debt Crisis‘So Rule is an issue’
Page F4From§Eachthe early bird edition — 1 September 2026
Congress funds government for election season, leaves debt crisis untouched
Congress has passed a stopgap funding bill, with significant Democratic support, to avoid a pre-election shutdown. The House votes and coverage all point to government continuity as the main achievement, but the debt crisis is left unaddressed on the ledger. The documents show the funding bill does not contain provisions for debt relief or structural reform, and each headline marks the continuity as its own reward. The gap between operational funding and fiscal responsibility is measured in billions, and the receipts reconcile to zero progress on the latter. The government is kept open, but the debt is kept whole. The fiscal calendar runs on election cycles, not on debt management. In the end, the bank statement is unchanged, and the taxpayer gets continuity with a side of compounding interest, hon.
“They keep the lights on just long enough for campaign ads, but the debt crisis stays right where they left it. The government gets a stopgap, the debt gets a shrug, and you get a reminder on your tax bill. That's the show.”
“The responsible thing is to avoid a shutdown, and Congress delivered—funding is continuity, not crisis management. Of course, some folks will complain nothing's fixed, but you can't solve everything in one bill. Did I say 'everything'? Well, maybe not the debt. Maybe that's a next-quarter issue.”
The receipts
The House approved a bipartisan funding bill Tuesday that will keep the federal government fully operational until after the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The House on Tuesday passed a measure to extend government funding into December, averting a shutdown in the final stretch of the midterm campaign.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) got help from the other side of the aisle on Tuesday to pass a stopgap funding bill to head off a government shutdown ahead of the November elections. More than 175 House Democrats supported the funding patch to fund the government through Dec. 11, with the measure passing 370-48.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.