Two bipartisan bills would create a fiscal commission and force Congress to vote on the results. Here’s why that matters. 

The U.S. is headed toward a debt crisis that will cause a Nightmare on Main Street, unless Congress can quickly get a handle on the debt and deficit. 

History shows that’s unlikely.  

There are only three ways Congress can dig the U.S. out of its fiscal hole: tax hikes, spending cuts, or economic growth at a pace we haven’t seen in decades. In all likelihood, it would take a combination of all three. 

Americans wouldn’t like it, and Congress knows it. Cutting spending means cutting programs people and powerful interest groups like. Raising revenue means taking more money from taxpayers. In the current environment, most members of Congress would rather kick the can down the road than take a politically risky vote on a real fix. 

That’s where a fiscal commission comes in – an independent, bipartisan body empowered to propose the hard stuff that individual members of Congress won’t touch on their own. No Labels’ allies in the House and Senate are proposing legislation to do just that. 

The Warning Signs 

The national debt held by the public is $31.3 trillion dollars, roughly equal to America’s entire gross domestic product (GDP), a broad measure of the size of the economy. That means the federal government owes more in debt than the whole American economy produces in a year. We haven’t been in this position since World War II. 

The annual deficit – the gap between what the government spends and what it takes in – is $1.9 trillion this year alone, higher than it ever was before Covid. The Congressional Budget Office projects it will reach $3.1 trillion by 2036. 

And just like a credit card, the federal government has to pay interest to borrow money. Interest payments this year are set to reach $1 trillion, making it the second–biggest item in the federal budget, behind only Social Security. America now spends more on interest payments than it does on defense. 

Meanwhile, Social Security – the program that tens of millions of Americans depend on for retirement – is in trouble. The program’s primary trust fund is projected to be depleted in 2033. Unless Congress acts, beneficiaries will see their benefits cut by 23% across the board, plunging 3.8 million seniors into poverty overnight.  

The Logic Behind a Commission 

Washington has known about these problems for years but has never been forced to confront them head on. A well-designed fiscal commission could change that. 

The idea is simple: take the most politically explosive decisions out of the normal legislative process, hand them to a bipartisan group of lawmakers and experts tasked with putting everything on the table, and then require Congress to vote up-or-down on the result. 

It works for the same reason base closures work. When the Pentagon wants to close military bases – another decision that’s politically painful but fiscally necessary – Congress long ago set up a process where an independent commission recommends closures, and Congress votes on the whole package. No member can protect their home-state base through amendments or carveouts; the entire package passes or fails as a whole. 

A fiscal commission would apply the same logic to the debt. America simply will not solve its debt problem unless Washington is forced to do so – with a process that requires Democrats and Republicans to develop a plan that puts everything on the table, from what and how we spend to what and how we tax. 

Simpson–Bowles: A Cautionary Tale 

This isn’t a new idea. In 2010, President Obama created the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform – better known as Simpson-Bowles, after its co-chairs, former Republican Senator Alan Simpson and former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles. 

The commission produced a serious, comprehensive plan. It called for a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases, proposed changes to Social Security and Medicare, and offered a genuine path to fiscal sustainability. 14 of its 18 members voted for it, with support from both Republicans and Democrats. 

And then nothing happened. 

Why? Because Simpson-Bowles had no legislative teeth. It was created by an executive order, but the President can’t force Congress to hold a vote. The recommendations just quietly died. Simpson-Bowles became synonymous with a good idea that Washington managed to ignore. 

That’s why No Labels’ 2023 policy booklet Common Sense called specifically for Congress to create a bipartisan deficit reduction commission to make recommendations that they must take an up-or-down vote on. Now, bipartisan leaders are doing just that. 

Two Bills, One Idea 

Right now, there are two bipartisan bills in Congress that would fix the Simpson-Bowles problem. 

In the Senate, the Fiscal Commission Act is being led by Senators John Curtis, Bill Cassidy, and Todd Young – close allies of No Labels who have been among the most serious voices in Congress on fiscal responsibility. In the House, the Sustainable Budget Act of 2025 was introduced by Rep. Ed Case – vice chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a group No Labels helped found – alongside a bipartisan group of co-sponsors. 

Both bills would create a bipartisan commission to develop a comprehensive fiscal plan. Both require support from both parties to approve any recommendations – so neither party can steamroll the other. And both include expedited congressional procedures that would force an up-or-down floor vote on the result, with no filibuster and no amendments. 

But the two bills have some differences. 

The Senate bill keeps the entire process within Congress: the commission’s voting members are all members of Congress (there are 4 outside experts who can provide feedback but can’t vote), the commission drafts legislation itself, and then Congress votes directly on the legislation. 

The House bill gives the President more of a role. The President appoints a third of the commission and is then responsible for translating its recommendations into legislation. But the President can pick and choose which recommendations to include in the end, which risks a partisan bill with no chance of becoming law. 

The bills also differ in their goals and guardrails.  

The Senate bill sets a specific debt target – getting the debt-to-GDP ratio below 100 percent by 2039 – and explicitly requires the commission to address the long-term solvency of Social Security and Medicare for at least 75 years. The House bill sets a goal of balancing the primary budget (all government spending excluding interest payments) within 10 years, but is less prescriptive about entitlements like Social Security and Medicare.  

On transparency, the House bill requires the commission to maintain a public website posting all recommendations and attendance records within 72 hours of each meeting. The Senate bill focuses more on public engagement, mandating at least six hearings – including field hearings around the country – and requiring a national public awareness campaign on the country’s fiscal condition within 30 days of the commission submitting its report. 

Both are serious, commonsense proposals. Both deserve a vote. 

The clock is ticking. No Labels recently laid out in vivid detail what a debt crisis could look like for everyday Americans in our new booklet, Nightmare on Main Street, and the picture isn’t pretty. For now, the booklet is fictional; these two bills are a chance to make sure it stays that way.