“Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.”
– Herbert Hoover
“You can’t borrow and spend your way to prosperity”
– Wiard B. Ebeling
I am amazed at the current standoff in the “budget” negotiations. These “negotiations” don’t really have anything to do with the budget AT ALL. We can all see that this is just theater about who gets their way on the immigration issues that the country is struggling with. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to minimize how thorny this issue is. I don’t want to minimize how important it is to restore order to our immigration processes. This is a whole different discussion for another day. What frustrates me is that the concept of MONEY really isn’t germane to their discussions even though this IS a budget question. Do the Democrats REALLY care about $5 Billion for the wall? Heck no, Congress spills that much every morning that they are in session!! They just don’t want to see the President get his way. And does the President REALLY care about $5 Billion? Heck no, his budget is the biggest in history. He is just trying to keep a campaign promise to build a facility that he promised Mexico was going to pay for. Nobody cares about $5 Billion. But even though it is a small part of the Federal Budget – I CARE and I think most Americans do too.
Both parties have abandoned fiscal reality. The budget is just an arena for them to have their ideological fights. Meanwhile our deficits are ballooning to unheard-of dimensions. Learned economists and just plain folks like me are becoming more and more alarmed at what we are going to leave to our children and grandchildren and what we are going to do to our economy and the world economy if we don’t address the ongoing budget deficit problem.
I am most disappointed in the Republican Party. There was a time when I was a Republican that our party was one who favored limited government and PAYING our bills. Democrats were the social conscience that provided balance to this although in our opinion, too often their plans were unmoored by financial realities. But now it seems that even Republicans have abandoned the concept of paying for what we do. Politics in Washington are so toxic today that they really can’t even talk to each other. Democrats couldn’t possibly stomach the idea that some program might need to be pared back or eliminated. Republicans couldn’t possibly stomach the idea of an increase in taxes even if that is what is needed to balance the budget that includes the programs that THEY want.
The only things that these two groups CAN apparently agree on is to increase our national debt. And that is what has been happening at record levels under both Republican and Democratic control for the last twenty years. I might throw up my hands in despair and say that a balanced budget is not possible were it not for a bit of history that we have forgotten. The budget WAS balanced for several years in the 1990’s. Our Democratic President and our Republican Congressmen laid down their weapons long enough to do something that had eluded those before and after.
Here is my appeal to my national representatives – Could you at least TALK about this a little bit? Could you not automatically revert to an unbalanced budget? If you can’t balance the budget could you at least REDUCE the deficit? I don’t want to hear from the Democrats about how the present needs are historically critical – I have been hearing that for years. I don’t want to hear from Republicans about some voodoo economic theory that tax cuts are going to power us through the deficits by generating new revenues – I have been hearing that for years too. Even if I believed that theory, tax cuts don’t HAVE to be done at the expense of a balanced budget. Sorry if this is too demanding but I think this is your JOB. I know it will be difficult but we need your fiscal courage now more than ever.