‘What they’ve done’: Adam Kinzinger is astounded after Republicans warn about $40 trillion in debt they allegedly helped make possible

The US debt hitting the $40 trillion milestone has triggered strong reactions across the internet. One person to address it was former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger. He took to X to voice his frustration after seeing Utah Senator John Curtis post about the country’s massive debt increase. Kinzinger didn’t hold back, writing, “How can all these republicans tweet about the debt after what they’ve done.” 

Curtis had posted, “To put $40 trillion in perspective, that’s more than $113,000 for every man, woman, and child in this country. It far exceeds our entire GDP. Our reckless spending problem in Washington is immoral—it unfairly leaves our children and grandchildren to foot the bill—but it also is making our economic stability extremely fragile. The more we add to our debt, the greater the threat of disaster in the event of an economic shock. We should all be alarmed.”

In his post, Curtis called Congress to rally behind solutions, specifically naming the Fiscal Commission Act, which is led in the Senate partly by Curtis. According to the fact sheet, it aims to create a bipartisan roadmap to reach a sustainable debt-to-GDP ratio of no more than 100 percent and improve the solvency of programs like Social Security and Medicare. However, the ambitious plan arrives in a landscape already shaped by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, something Curtis had voted for.

One clear impact

When that bill was moving through Congress, the Trump administration pushed back hard against critics. The White House claimed the legislation was the most pro-growth, pro-worker, and pro-family legislation ever crafted. They insisted it would deliver the largest middle- and working-class tax cut in history, putting more than $10,000 a year back into the pockets of typical families. 

Per the press release, the administration also rejected the idea that the bill would increase the deficit. Instead, they asserted that it would actually reduce deficits by over $2 trillion by boosting economic growth and cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. They even went so far as to label the Congressional Budget Office as the “Crooked Budget Office,” arguing it had a terrible record with predictions. The Bill went on to be signed into law on July,4th 2025.

The fiscal reality painted by other analysts, however, looks quite different. A report from the Center for American Progress suggests that the One Big Beautiful Bill is actually the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in U.S. history. Their analysis, which used projections from the Congressional Budget Office, concluded that the law increases deficits by $3.4 trillion over the coming decade. 

The report noted that before the law was enacted, stabilizing the debt would have required reducing primary deficits by 1.64 percentage points of GDP each year. When enacted, the bill increased that requirement to 2.39 percentage points, a hike of nearly 50%. The report also noted that if temporary tax and spending provisions were made permanent, the fiscal gap would rise even further, by 76%.

CBS News reported that the Senate passed the bill in a 51-to-50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. At the end, except for GOP Senators Thom Tillis, Rand Paul, and Susan Collins, all Republicans voted for it. 

According to CBS, this happened despite some Republicans and independent economists being deeply concerned about its potential to increase the deficit. Others were also reportedly worried about the steep cuts to Medicaid, which the CBO estimated would leave nearly 12 million more Americans without health coverage. Senator Lisa Murkowski, who eventually supported the bill, described her decision-making process as “agonizing,” noting that she struggled with the impact on the most vulnerable.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune hailed the passage as an “incredible victory for the American people,” but the legislative process was intense. Per CBS, Democrats used delay tactics, including forcing the bill to be read in its entirety, which took nearly 16 hours. They also held a “vote-a-rama” to force Republicans to take positions on controversial amendments. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reportedly lambasted the bill after the vote. He told reporters, “The American people will remember the Republican betrayal.” When you consider the various aspects of this conversation, it’s clear this debate isn’t going away anytime soon. 

While it is commendable that there are efforts to look for solutions, like the Fiscal Commission Act, it seems that observers like Kinzinger are getting tripped by other facts. Like the disconnect between the rhetoric on debt and the legislative record.