Tampa Bay Times
Sen. Rick Scott
February 19, 2025

President Donald Trump has the opportunity to make history and secure yet another win in his second term, joining the ranks of only a few other presidents in our nation’s history who successfully balanced the nation’s budget. Even better, he can match, or beat, a feat last accomplished by President Bill Clinton to maintain a balanced budget for three years straight.

Think about this for a second: Every family and business in the United States has to make — and stick to — a budget. They look at their income, they look at their expenses and they make decisions accordingly. There’s absolutely no reason your federal government should be held to any other standard.

The idea of a balanced federal budget is only controversial in the dark rooms of Washington, where common sense is lost, and the Washington elite, who has long benefitted from this mass dysfunction, has gotten really comfortable wasting trillions of your tax dollars. These are the same Washington elites who call me crazy for fighting to make government run like a business.

Take, for example, what I did in Florida when I was governor. When I took office in 2011, Florida had a large, looming budget deficit and a debt problem. The state had spent more than it had collected for decades and borrowed money to cover deficits. In business, this would mean bankruptcy. In government, it’s simply business as usual.

When I took office as governor, I did what the newly created Department of Government Efficiency is doing now — I went through every single line of our state’s 4,000-line budget. We looked at how every dollar was spent and put a purpose and return for every dollar. If it didn’t have a purpose or provide a return, we didn’t do it.

We were able to have a balanced budget, cut taxes, pay off one-third of the state’s debt and make record investments in education, transportation and the environment.

We can follow the same playbook on the federal level.

This isn’t crazy, and truthfully, it isn’t that complicated. Is it going to be hard work, made even harder by America’s $36 trillion debt crisis and $2 trillion annual deficits becoming the norm in Washington? Absolutely.

But if anyone can do it, it’s Trump. He’s a businessman willing to make the tough decisions necessary to Make America Great Again and go against the status quo. It’s exactly why the American people elected him, and he’s showing his willingness to take on Washington and drain the swamp with the work he and Elon Musk are doing with Department of Government Efficiency. The president has already directed Musk and DOGE to review every federal expenditure. That’s a great start. Every agency will need to make it a top priority to reduce wasteful spending and increase efficiency. But, Trump can’t bring the federal government to heel by himself.

In Congress, we’ll need to pass a budget that ensures President Trump has the resources to secure the border and provide for America’s armed services. This means more border patrol, more immigration agents, and beds to house people awaiting deportation. We also need to find savings to actually pay for these priorities — not just use the same budget gimmicks that have helped put America $36 trillion in debt.

Then, we need to stop spending more than we take in. That’s what it means when we have a federal deficit — the government spent more than it received. For fiscal year 2025, it’s anticipated we’ll take in $5.5 trillion in revenues, so logic dictates that we would need to pass spending bills that total close to $5.5 trillion in expenditures. There is no doubt we can get on the path towards a balanced budget. Again, that’s completely doable. It just means Congress has to stop spending your tax dollars like drunken sailors and start making a lot of tough decisions.

Finally, Republicans can use the reconciliation process to prevent a $4 trillion tax hike on Americans and set us down the path to a balanced budget. If we do these things, the border will be secure, inflation will go away, interest rates will come down, the federal government’s budget will be balanced for the first time in two and a half decades, and President Trump will make history for saving the American dream while welcoming a new Golden Age in America.

It’s time to get to work delivering on our promises to the American people.

Republican Rick Scott represents Florida in the U.S. Senate and serves on the Senate Budget Committee. He is a former Florida governor.