Democrats push plan to cut the deficit

By JACKIE CALMES and CARL HULSE,The New York Times, October 31, 2009

WASHINGTON — Faced with anxiety in financial markets about the huge federal deficit and the potential for it to become an electoral liability for Democrats, the White House and Congressional leaders are weighing options for narrowing the gap, including a bipartisan commission that could force tax increases and spending cuts. (link)

Commentary

I am pleased that the Democrats are finally becoming concerned about the growing deficits. Ever since President Obama’s election, any time someone expressed concern about the budget deficit and the rising U.S. debt, Democrats would point out that Republicans also ran huge deficits and increased the national debt under George W. Bush.

That is valid criticism and Republican fiscal irresponsibility is one of the reasons I became a disgruntled Republican. Republicans spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and didn't even try to pay for it and simply added the costs to the deficit. Republicans also boosted Medicare spending with the Medicare Part D program, and with No Child Left Behind, adding all of the costs to the deficit.

The fact that Republicans were irresponsible is no justification for Democratic irresponsibility. Since President Obama has taken office the budget deficit and the national debt have ballooned, dwarfing the fiscal irresponsibility of the Republicans. Admittedly, the nation faced a severe economic crisis and some emergency spending was justified. However, on top of the TARP and the stimulus package spending and the various other initiatives of the Obama administration we are now considering costly health care reform and cap and trade, which will add to the budget deficits.

We must get a handle on the deficit and the growing national debt. Simply paying interest on the debt takes a bigger and bigger chunk out of the budget making cutting the budget more and more difficult. We are like a family that is living beyond our means and financing our spending by borrowing. It is as if we were using credit cards to pay the minimum monthly payments on other credit cards. The debt just grows and grows and grows. Like the family that eventually caps out the last credit card, there may come a time when the Chinese will no long finance our excessive spending. Unlike the family that will then be forced to file bankruptcy, the US will inflate the currency and debt obligations will be repaid with cheaper dollars. I do not see how we can possibly avoid future massive inflation unless we get a handle on spending.

Maybe a bi-partisan committee to address the deficit has merit but I would have to be persuaded. My initial reaction is that the concept of a bipartisan commission “that could force tax increases and spending cuts” is a bad idea. If the Democrats are the majority on a bi-partisan committee, I have no confidence that we would see any meaningful spending cuts; instead the result would be ever increasing taxes. The bi-partisan committee would simply provide cover for an ever-increasing growth of government. As taxes consume a greater and greater share of the GNP, there will be less money in the private sector to grow the economy. Not only as a nation and as individuals do we become poorer, but also as government grows freedom diminishes. What is needed is to elect people to office who will be responsible and reduce government spending.

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