A few days ago, Rep. Jay Obernolte, the Republican representing California’s 23rd congressional district attempted to portray himself as a fiscal conservative.
“Washington added $1.6 trillion to the deficit last year alone,” he wrote on X. “That’s why I supported the $9 billion rescissions package this week. Every reduction in spending matters when our debt has surpassed $36 trillion. This is a meaningful step towards reining in reckless federal spending and restoring fiscal sanity to our government.”
It should seem pretty obvious that boasting about supporting a $9 billion cut in relation to a deficit of $1.6 trillion is like demanding credit for not getting a milkshake to go with your McDonald’s order when you’re a diabetic on the brink of losing your foot and drowning in debt.
It’s actually worse than that.
In some sense, trimming $9 billion from the budget is something. But it’s also essentially a rounding error in relation to the budget deficit and even more so in relation to the entire budget.
What makes this post from Obernolte even more remarkable is that he juist voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill which will add trillions of dollars to the national debt.
So, it’s one thing to assert you have an interest in reining in reckless federal spending and restoring fiscal sanity to our government. It’s another thing to actually demonstrate this.
With his vote for the OBBB, Obernolte has engaged in this reckless spending and fiscal insanity, but he wants to pretend otherwise because he supported a marginal cut to federal spending.
Most of these cuts were for foreign aid, as well as funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The latter got most of the attention.
Obernolte was once a sensible Republican voice in Sacramento railing against the fiscal irresponsibility of the Democratic supermajority. And about that he was usually right. But now, in federal office, Obernolte is a participant in fiscal irresponsibility on an even grander scale.
Of course, this editorial board acknowledges we have endorsed him in the past. It helped that his challenger these last two cycles was a far-left progressive who would spend even more than Obernolte if given the chance.
There’s no winning.
