Joe Biden and I fought deficit disaster together as senators. Four decades later, we need fiscal sanity

In 1984, when faced with $200 billion deficits and a national debt nearing $2 trillion, an emphatic Democrat Senator Joe Biden warned of “economic disaster” unless Congress took “dramatic actions on deficits right now.” He was advocating for a government-wide spending freeze – a bipartisan proposal that he and I led to restore fiscal restraint to the federal government. 

Today, our total national debt has surpassed $31 trillion – 15 times larger than 1984. Our public debt as a share of our economy – a frequently used measure to assess debt size over time – hovers around 100 percent, compared to 35 percent when Senator Biden was warning of “economic disaster.” Yet last year, President Joe Biden touted a $1.4 trillion deficit as some kind of fiscal victory. 

Now, after enduring recent supply chain bottlenecks, record fuel prices and soaring inflation, Americans face yet another looming economic crisis that could risk the full…