www.thecentersquare.com – By Brett Rowland | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-01-11 15:00:00
(The Center Square) – The federal government borrowed $710 billion in the first three months of fiscal year 2025, with 10 days before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
The Congressional Budget Office reported $710 billion in borrowing, including $85 billion in the month of December, according to the latest Monthly Budget Review.
Federal agencies, including the CBO, expect deficit spending to continue despite promises from Trump and others to cut the federal budget.
Trump promised to cut “hundreds of billions” in federal spending in 2025 through the reconciliation process, a parliamentary procedure that allows Congress to expedite the passage of some federal budget legislation.
Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, run by Tesla boss Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, also promised to cut the federal government down to size. Earlier this week, Musk estimated DOGE could trim $1 trillion from the federal budget, a sizable amount considering discretionary spending totaled $1.7 trillion in 2023. Generally, Congress spends about half of its discretionary budget on the U.S. Department of Defense.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said U.S. borrowing should be a focus as Trump takes office.
“As we start the new year ushering in a new administration and a new Congress, we must not lose sight of the fiscal challenges ahead,” she said. “Our unsustainable debt isn’t something we can just shy away from, as 2025 is packed full of fiscal deadlines. So far we’ve heard much about how lawmakers plan to spend more and tax less; we’ve heard much less about the opposite.”
MacGuineas suggested no new borrowing and guaranteeing all tax cuts and spending increases are fully offset. That’s a daunting challenge for lawmakers as they look to extend the tax provision in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which the CBO estimated will cost about $4 trillion over the next decade.
Congress has run a deficit every year since 2001. In the past 50 years, the federal government has ended with a fiscal year-end budget surplus four times, most recently in 2001.
Democratic-led states are urged by Common Cause officials to avoid mid-decade redistricting in response to Texas Republicans’ effort to redraw congressional districts before the 2026 elections. Common Cause, advocating for nonpartisan commissions, warns against escalating partisan redistricting battles, emphasizing fair voter representation over political advantage. Texas Republicans’ current maps favor their party but face legal challenges for discriminating against Black and Latino voters. Democrats in states like California, New York, and Illinois are considering retaliatory redistricting, though Common Cause calls for maintaining neutral election infrastructure. The debate highlights the tension between partisan interests and the goal of equitable representation.
States led by Democrats should resist the temptation to conduct their own mid-decade redistricting in response to Republicans in the Texas Legislature moving to redraw U.S. House lines before the 2026 elections, officials with the nonpartisan election integrity group Common Cause said on a press call Tuesday.
While blasting Texas Republicans’ effort to remake congressional districts in the middle of a decade — instead of after the decennial census, as is typical — the officials said the creation of nonpartisan redistricting commissions that take the job out of politicians’ hands was a better policy than joining a redistricting arms race.
Common Cause, a national organization with several state chapters, is often aligned with progressive causes, but advocates for fair redistricting regardless of party.
Emily Eby French, the policy director for Common Cause Texas, said election infrastructure should be neutral, arguing against the suggestion from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats that blue states pursue mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage.
“Our election infrastructure is not supposed to have a thumb on the scale for either side,” French said.
“In Texas, conservatives press their thumbs so hard on the scale that it feels impossible to overcome,” she continued. “Maybe a quick fix would be to have Democrats press their thumbs on their own scales. But then it’s just rigged elections across America. The real solution is for Democrats to help us lift the Republican thumb off of the Texas scale and every other scale in America until we reach free and fair elections for everyone.”
Russia Chavis Cardenas, the deputy director for Common Cause California, added that Newsom should not “fight fire with fire.” Partisan redistricting processes inherently disadvantage communities of color, she said.
California’s independent redistricting commission, made up of five Democrats, five Republicans and four nonpartisan members, is the “gold standard … (an) independent and community-led process,” Dan Vicuna, senior policy director for voting and fair representation at Common Cause’s national office, said.
The state should not sacrifice that model for short-term political gain, he said.
Texas redistricting
Republicans held a 220-215 advantage in the U.S. House following the 2024 elections. Those elections happened on district maps drawn after the 2020 census.
The GOP House majority was helped in part by Texas’ 2020 district map, which produced Republican wins in nearly two-thirds of the state’s districts.
Civil rights groups sued over the new lines, claiming that some districts discriminated against Black and Latino voters.
Texas Republicans resisted calls to redraw the lines, but the U.S. Justice Department this month sent a letter urging state leaders to reconsider.
The letter “was sloppily and transparently creating a pretext for Texas legislators to redraw the state’s gerrymandered congressional map and somehow gerrymander it even more in favor of Republicans,” Vicuna said Tuesday.
President Donald Trump quickly dissolved that pretext, putting the issue in nakedly political terms on a call with Texas Republicans. Trump said the state’s lines should be redrawn to create five additional U.S. House seats, the Texas Tribune reported. A president’s party typically loses congressional seats during midterm elections.
Following the letter, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, called a special session to address redistricting, among other things.
Dem states respond
In addition to Newsom, leaders in the Democratic strongholds of New York and Illinois are considering retaliating by initiating their own mid-decade redistricting processes, according to a New York Times report.
Other prominent national Democrats are calling for the party to be more aggressive in redistricting.
U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego wrote on X last week that Democrats should break some heavily Democratic majority-minority districts to help win more seats.
In follow-up posts responding to replies, Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, wrote that Democrats should gerrymander districts in their favor.
“It’s bad when everyone does it,” the first-term senator and former House member wrote about gerrymandering. “But Dems should not unilaterally disarm till GOP does.”
Gallego’s post was retweeted by Jessica Post, a campaign strategist who previously led Democrats’ state legislative campaign arm. But the party’s current establishment is largely not commenting.
A July 23 memo to Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee contributors from Heather Williams, who succeeded Post as the group’s president, mentioned the Texas redistricting, but said it only raised the stakes for statehouse races in the next three election cycles in advance of 2030 redistricting.
“Today, as Donald Trump and his allies in the states are openly pushing to draw new, gerrymandered seats in Texas to protect the GOP’s meager House majority leading up to 2026, it’s clear this is just a preview of what’s to come,” Williams wrote. “The 2030 redistricting fight has already begun.”
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm for House Democrats, did not respond to a message seeking comment Tuesday.
Vicuna, with Common Cause, urged reporters to see redistricting not as a partisan conflict, but as an issue of voter representation.
“This familiar framing that makes redistricting entirely about a political fight between parties is also kind of the problem,” he said. “This is ultimately about fair representation for communities, getting to have a say, being at the table when decisions are made about whether they can have fair representation. And I think that’s what we’re really talking about here, not just the food fight between the parties.”
West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This article presents a viewpoint largely aligned with progressive and Democratic-leaning perspectives, emphasizing concerns about Republican-led mid-decade redistricting efforts and their impact on fair representation, particularly for communities of color. It highlights the criticisms from a nonpartisan group often associated with progressive causes and features Democratic officials urging restraint on partisan gerrymandering. The language criticizes Republican actions as attempts to entrench power while framing Democratic responses as more principled or cautious, although it acknowledges internal Democratic debates on the issue. Overall, the tone and framing lean moderately left but maintain a focus on election fairness rather than outright partisan advocacy.
SUMMARY: Engaging Families West Virginia, a free resource from the Department of Education, supports early learning skills by connecting families, educators, and communities. Coordinator Emily Pearson emphasizes that intentional conversations at home spark children’s school readiness by developing essential communication skills. The program offers easy-to-access videos and activities tailored for young children’s short attention spans. Caleb Benson, director of the West Virginia Family Engagement Center, highlights that anyone can use these resources without prior experience or special skills. The initiative aims to make early learning accessible, fun, and meaningful for all caregivers to prepare children for school success.
School readiness starts at birth, but for some it can be hard to know what children need to learn before going to school. Engaging Families WV is a free resource by the department of education bringing families, educators and communities together to help to build early learning skills in young children at home.
SUMMARY: Christian Boler’s 7-day forecast highlights storms bringing relief from persistent heat. Currently, it’s 69°F with fog patches clearing soon. Today’s high hits 86°F with scattered thunderstorms beginning around 2 PM and ending by 1 AM tomorrow. Severe storms affect areas like Iowa and Illinois, while heat advisories remain elsewhere, sparing the local area. A cold front will pass through Thursday and Friday, ushering in cooler temperatures and more storms. Rain totals will generally range from a quarter to half an inch, with isolated heavier downpours. After Saturday’s lingering storms, Sunday and Monday will be clear before showers return Tuesday, easing heat concerns significantly.
