Jim Renacci served four terms representing Ohio's 16th congressional district. With a background in business before entering politics, he has been an advocate for economic growth policies, and fiscal responsibility. 

According to Renacci, one of the biggest issues with the country’s fiscal policy is an unwillingness to address the drivers of debt. "One of the reasons we can't seem to balance our budget in Washington is we don't want to look at the real drivers of the debt,” he says. Everybody seems to want to ignore those things." 

He recalls his time on the Budget and Ways and Means Committees, where he pushed for a more transparent financial approach. "I actually even tried to get the federal government to do a balance sheet, an income statement, only to get pushback from leadership,” he says. He references “the things nobody wants to talk about—Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and now interest,” as the main contributors to deficit spending.

Rising interest rates are another major concern. Rates have naturally increased, Renacci says, because "we were running almost a zero interest rate for years, which was really being held down by the federal government.” The challenge now he says is that “the compounding of interest on this debt will continue to grow the national debt very quickly."

Renacci also pays attention to the reconciliation process in Congress, and is concerned about how it has been misused. "It's a unique thing that you can do in Congress because you only need a majority of the House and Senate to get it done,” he says. “It's supposed to be budget-oriented,” he says, meaning “it's supposed to be only issues that can affect budgetary items,” though it inevitably “goes into other areas."

He laments the departure from “regular order,” the process that was normally followed in passing appropriations bills until the last several years. "When I first got to Washington, I understood what regular order was–you start a bill, you get co-sponsors, you take it through the committee. The committee then gets a chance to make adjustments to it. Then it goes to the full House,” he says. The problem today is, “we've lost all that." 

He recalls his first committee assignment on Financial Services, where amendments could be made in the committee. "That's regular order,” he says, where “you can negotiate with the Democrats or even the Republicans in your committee and make changes.” By comparison, he describes the process as “bills come down from the top,” and then, “you're pushed into passing them…they don't get all the committee work they need," he says.

When asked if debt is pushing the country into dangerous territory, Renacci is quick to respond.  "Absolutely. One of the things I was pushing for in Congress was a fiscal state of the nation address,” he says. While he recalls that he had bipartisan support, he blames congressional leaders. “I didn't have leadership support.”

“The fiscal state address was totally thrown out by leadership,” he says, because “they did not want anybody going in front of Congress and explaining how we were fiscally going in the wrong direction."

He stresses that addressing fiscal challenges requires making tough decisions, particularly regarding entitlement programs. "When they start talking about cutting trillions of dollars but [they’re] not going to touch Social Security, [they’re] not going to touch Medicare, then I know that they're really just not going to get the job done." 

Renacci points out that the aging baby-boomer generation is significantly increasing the burden on Medicare and Medicaid. "We're going through a period where the baby boomers are now going into retirement. Medicare and Medicaid are being used up at the highest level ever. There's less employment to cover for those baby boomers," he explains.

Renacci is concerned about structural flaws in how states manage Medicaid spending. “Why would a state care about how much they spend in Medicaid?” he asks. He then offers an example. “For every dollar that Ohio spends in Medicaid, they get reimbursed by the federal government $0.90. So Medicaid is one of the biggest budget items in Ohio's budget. Think about that. If you go to the legislature in Ohio and say, you really should cut Medicaid, then they go, why? The federal government is paying 90% of it."

Renacci details his experience in Congress in his book, The GOP's Lost Decade, describing his initial view upon arriving in Washington. "When I first got there, I was in awe. I really wondered how I got there,” he says. “Then I looked around after a day or so and thought to myself, how did everybody else get [here]?" He expresses concerns about the lack of expertise among elected officials. "We elect people to represent us, but we're really not electing people who…really understand the issues."

He also criticizes the lack of real-world experience among congressional staffers. "When people come to me and say, I want to go into politics, what do you think is my best way of going? I said, go into the business world first,” he says. “If you really want to go into politics, don't go there first," he says because you will in effect be guided only by others who also have little experience outside of politics.

Jim Renacci, Former Ohio Representative