Regardless of how voters cast their ballots on November 3, the Republican majorities that will lead the lame-duck session of the 119th Congress must face a multitude of major issues, including deciding what to do about the soaring national debt of nearly $41 trillion.

The debt limit heads the list of challenges facing the lame duck, because after GOP Senate and House leaders agreed to raise the debt limit by $5 trillion, they approved a fiscal year 2026 federal budget that spent $7.4 trillion, but the Treasury Department only collected $5.4 trillion in revenues from all sources, leaving a deficit of $1.99 trillion.

But only about $1.1 trillion of that $5 trillion hike from last year remains available, which means there will have to be yet another debt limit boost unless the lame duckers display an all-but-unprecedented depth of political courage by approving massive spending cuts that Republicans have talked about for decades but never actually enacted.

An examination of the specific spending increases that accounted for the $386 billion bigger budget deficit from 2025 to 2026 points to the main reasons why nobody expects from GOP leaders anything remotely approaching the level of political courage and spending cuts required to avoid another debt limit increase.

Contrary to Democratic claims that the Iran War is the chief culprit in causing economic problems like inflation and rising interest rates, the biggest portion of the increased deficit, according to Baseline Policy’s Matthew Dickerson, from last year to this year was the $86 billion in additional Social Security benefits, followed by the $81 billion in net interest paid to holders of the national debt. Third was $76 billion in Medicare. Defense spending increased $46 billion, but that was only good for the fourth biggest spending hike.

In addition to his work with Baseline Policy, Dickerson is senior fellow in Budgetary Analysis for the Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill.

To their credit, congressional Republicans, along with President Donald Trump, did enact some serious spending cuts, including $31 billion in natural resources and environmental programs, and $22 billion in community development initiatives. With other much smaller cuts, the total reductions reached only $72 billion, trailing each of the three biggest spenders.

Democrats also claim Trump’s tax cuts included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act approved in conjunction with the July 2025 debt limit increase are causing bigger deficits, but barely a year after their enactment, those reduced levies produced $169 billion higher revenues.

If, as expected, the Trump cuts generate additional revenues of the same year-to-year magnitude as the Reagan tax cuts of 1981, revenues, combined with the fast-growing economy, can be expected to put more dollars in the hands of senators and representatives. But the lame-duck session will be long past when those additional revenues hit the Treasury.

For decades, Social Security has been viewed as the untouchable “Third Rail” of American politics, thus making it entirely immune from benefit cuts that could greatly assist official efforts to reduce federal outlays and deficits. But there are signs across the political spectrum that voters may be changing their view of the nation’s original and biggest benefit program.

A September 2026 survey of registered voters for the Peter G. Petersen Foundation, which advocates across-the-board spending reductions to eliminate annual budget deficits, found far more openness among respondents than would be the case were the old mindset still dominant. The Social Security Trustees are currently projecting the system will be forced to cut benefits beginning in 2032 absent reforms being enacted before that date, thanks to a shortfall in the program’s Trust Fund.

In the Petersen survey, 81% of voters in states with key Senate races said they would be more likely to support a candidate with a plan to prevent projected benefit cuts than one who simply promised not to touch Social Security. Support for significant benefit reform rose from 49% to 91% after respondents were told about the projected 2032 shortfall. That sharp change also shows how much the framing of the question matters. The states covered by the survey included voters in Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas.

The survey also found that:

• 77% of voters say lawmakers who promise not to touch Social Security are making the problem worse and agree delaying makes the problem harder to fix.
• 85% say it is more important than ever for lawmakers to fix Social Security, with the cost of living so high and rising every day.
• 88% of voters agree that current lawmakers should talk more about this problem.

One other aspect of the lame duck is worthy of mention here, the fact that 71 incumbents of the 119th Congress are not seeking reelection either because they filed for another office or they are retiring from elective office. That means there will be 71 members of the 119th Congress who should be able to vote their true convictions about the national debt, federal spending, balancing the budget, and related issues without worrying about how voters react.

The big question is whether those 71 departing members will take the courageous stand or close out their congressional careers kicking the can down the ever-shortening road to fiscal catastrophe yet again.