Permanent Crisis Spending Has Made Washington Addicted to Itself

By Lynn Matthews Opinion| WECU News

The federal government has become addicted to its own emergencies. Each crisis—manufactured or real—feeds Washington’s appetite for expansion, new spending, and new control over Americans’ lives. What once required extraordinary justification is now routine, and what was once temporary has become permanent.

When COVID-19 struck in 2020, Congress opened the floodgates with trillions in emergency aid. At the time, few objected. Americans were frightened, uncertain, and hurting. Stimulus checks, unemployment boosts, and small business loans kept families and companies afloat. But that money came with a price: it rewired Washington’s mentality. Instead of emergency response, we got emergency governance—a new model where every challenge becomes a pretext for bigger budgets, more programs, and less accountability.

That temporary expansion never ended. COVID-era subsidies and welfare increases morphed into permanent entitlements. The Affordable Care Act’s “temporary” premium subsidies became a fixture. Pandemic “emergency” spending for schools, media programs, and social initiatives evolved into baseline appropriations. Washington forgot how to turn off the tap.

Today, the federal government spends nearly 25% of the nation’s GDP—far above its pre-pandemic level of around 21%. That difference may sound small, but it translates into hundreds of billions of dollars each year. And those dollars aren’t going to essential operations like the FAA or defense; they’re being siphoned into a web of special interest programs, “equity initiatives,” and partisan pet projects with little or no oversight.

The latest shutdown only highlighted how entrenched that addiction has become. Democrats refused to pass clean funding bills unless more ACA subsidies were tacked on—programs they originally said were temporary. The nation suffered for 43 days because one party demanded the right to keep the spending spree alive. Americans endured furloughs, benefit cuts, and delays, all so Washington could protect its new status quo.

This is not compassion. It’s dependency—on both sides of the equation. Bureaucrats depend on crises to justify their budgets. Politicians depend on crises to justify their campaigns. And the people, who once depended on government only for defense and infrastructure, are increasingly taught to depend on it for everything.

That dependency has infected not only domestic policy but foreign aid. Billions continue flowing overseas for ideological causes disguised as humanitarianism. “Gender equity” programs in countries that reject basic freedoms. Funding for global media groups that push progressive narratives abroad. And yet, here at home, veterans still wait months for care, farmers are squeezed by regulation, and inflation eats away at every paycheck.

When government becomes both the arsonist and the firefighter, it will never put out the flames. Washington thrives on the very dysfunction it claims to fix.

There was a time when Congress could distinguish between “urgent” and “important.” Between temporary relief and permanent expansion. That line is gone. In its place stands an institutional addiction—one that feeds itself by manufacturing panic, rewarding failure, and punishing restraint.

Breaking that addiction will require more than speeches about fiscal responsibility. It demands a fundamental shift in how Americans view government. We cannot keep asking Washington to do less while rewarding it for doing more. We cannot balance the budget while believing every problem deserves a new federal office.

President Trump’s reopening of the government this week marked a moment of sanity—a reminder that leadership means saying no to endless crisis spending. But if Congress doesn’t follow through with deeper cuts and structural reform, this reprieve will be temporary, too.

Washington has become a mirror of its own excess: bloated, loud, and perpetually “urgent.” Until the people demand a detox, the addiction will continue—one trillion dollars at a time.