Most of the media’s ‘deficit hawks’ don’t exist

By playing along with the charade, big news organizations help the GOP.

For people who don’t follow the ins and outs of politics closely—that is, tens of millions of Americans—the message they’re getting about Trump’s new mega-bill boils down to this: It’s big, includes lots of spending and cutbacks, and even got the support of a bunch of Republicans who are concerned about the national debt.

Part of that's true. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” is, indeed, large. But the idea that a bunch of powerful lawmakers who care oh-so much about the debt were won over? That didn’t happen.

The reality is simpler. A bunch of Republicans scream about the national debt when a Democratic president is in office. When the GOP takes the White House, they talk a good game—at first. But when it comes to a final vote, that alleged concern evaporates. It’s a political game that's been played for decades.

Despite claims from the White House, numerous estimates find that this law will add trillions of dollars to our national debt (which currently stands at $37 trillion). The Cato Institute says, “As written, the bill will add nearly $4 trillion to the debt. Under realistic assumptions about economic growth, congressional extensions of tax giveaways or delays to spending reform, and the fiscal impact of mass deportations, the bill’s cost could soar past $6 trillion.” The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, meanwhile, predicts it will add between $4.1 trillion and $5.5 trillion to the debt.

Those figures involve projections, but here are two indisputable facts. First, the bill raises the debt ceiling—the limit on the Treasury’s borrowing—by $5 trillion. And, second, Republicans who opposed raising the debt ceiling under the Biden administration ultimately had no qualms about doing so for Trump.

No surprise there, though. As former President Joe Biden pointed out in 2021, the same people who voted to raise the limit during Trump’s first term suddenly decided another increase would be fiscally irresponsible under his presidency—even as his administration was digging the nation out of the mess Trump had made of the Covid-19 pandemic. (The A-Mark Foundation shows Trump vastly expanded the debt in his first term, and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget shows the majority of the added debt had nothing to do with Covid relief.)

Yes, Democrats have engaged in this same performative exercise. Former President Obama voted against raising the debt ceiling when he was a senator, then “regretted” that vote when he became president and pushed to increase it. But Republicans, amazingly, have managed to hold onto a reputation in the American consciousness as somehow being less likely to spend and rack up debt -- even though, as I’ve noted previously, the GOP’s track record for overspending is even worse.

So how does the myth carry on? We’ve seen a big reason in recent weeks. The media continuously portrays a group of Republicans as “deficit hawks” and “fiscal hawks.” To even a casual news consumer, it’s been virtually impossible to avoid the term.

“Fiscal hawks warned that the Senate’s version of the sweeping tax and spending bill adds too much to the national debt,” Time noted in a report on the intraparty battle among Republicans in the House of Representatives. Then, a few sentences later, “In the end, only two Republicans voted against the bill.” (Three Republican senators ultimately voted against the bill in that chamber.)

Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

This “hawks” term is virtually always, if not exclusively, reserved for Republicans these days. To check on this, I had an AI tool (Gemini) search 2025 reports in which major national news agencies referred to current lawmakers as “deficit hawks” or described them in very similar language. It identified seven representatives and five senators, all Republican. Some are even called “leading” deficit hawks, like Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., who got that designation from the Washington Post just days before he voted for the bill.

Don’t hawks rise above the fray, remain focused on a goal, and never give up? These folks aren’t hawks. Maybe the media should call them “self-proclaimed hawks” or “pseudo-hawks.” Maybe “all-talk hawks?” How about “blue jays,” which apparently mimic hawk sounds?

This isn’t just a linguistic exercise. By consistently playing up the idea that Republicans are the “deficit hawks,” the media continues to convince Americans that the GOP takes the annual deficit and ballooning national debt more seriously. It doesn’t.

In newsrooms across the country, this should be a simple decision. A person who votes to raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, accommodating new annual deficits, is no longer a deficit hawk—just as today’s GOP, by definition, is not a party of fiscal conservatism.

Josh Levs is host of They Stand Corrected, the podcast and newsletter fact-checking the media. Find him at joshlevs.com.

---