The fact that we are here today to
debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership
failure… a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own
bills… that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance
from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless
fiscal policies. …
Increasing America’s debt weakens us
domestically and internationally… Washington is shifting the
burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children
and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure
of leadership. Americans deserve better….
Over the past 5 years, our federal
debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion… That
is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security
trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from
American taxpayers…
This year, the Federal Government will
spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay
interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid
and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program … on
education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans
benefits combined.
And the cost of our debt is one of the
fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising
debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and
States of critical investments in infrastructure like
bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our
children of critical investments in education and health
care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and
health security they have counted on.
Every dollar we pay in interest is a
dollar that is not going to investment in America’s
priorities.
— U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.,
floor speech on public debt, March 16, 2006
A long quote: I could have rephrased it and offered it as my own
analysis, but that would be wrong. I’ll just update it, noting
that the debt ceiling was raised over Senator Obama’s objection,
and the national debt then increased from $8.6 trillion to $10.7
trillion when President Bush left office, to $14.3 at this point
in the Obama presidency, heading for double where it was when
Senator Obama so accurately defined the problem.
So having read this far, you understand the
situation as well as President Obama once understood it, as
libertarians have always understood it, as Republicans always
talked as if they understood it, as the Massachusetts
Congressional Democrats should finally face it, as the Tea Party
clearly understands it and wants us all to face it now with a
refusal to raise the debt ceiling again.
Forget being partisan: who can defend another
increase in the debt ceiling? All of us are smart enough to
understand that this can’t go on. So the only discussion should
be on how to run a government without adding more debt. What are
the priorities? What should be cut, should taxes be raised?
One thing for sure: we have to pay the debt
we owe. This is obvious, and doesn’t require a brand new silly
debate about whether the constitution allows the president to
raise the debt ceiling without a vote of Congress; no, it
doesn’t.
Moving on to a more common debate about
raising taxes, and on whom. Though a taxpayer activist devoted
to the “no new taxes” pledge, I can understand the argument to
raise taxes, not on “the rich” as in un-American class warfare,
but on people who can afford to pay more without undue
suffering. It is, after all, in their best interest too that the
economy survive.
But while this “balanced approach” seems to
make sense, it doesn’t work. Raising taxes is the traditional,
easy way for politicians to avoid facing essential
prioritization and government restructuring. Raise taxes, on
anyone, and kiss real solutions goodbye. In the past, according
to Americans for Tax Reform, politicians raised $1 in new taxes
and spent $1.37, as debt increased.
We should certainly begin the process of tax
reform, tax simplification: ending loopholes, subsidies,
lobbyist-purchased imbalances, while cutting rates that can be
shown to stimulate economic activity and create jobs.
Meanwhile, where to cut? That’s easy. Just
continue doing nothing about setting priorities and the
decisions will be made automatically, as the money runs out.
Then clean up the mess made by politicians who have not faced
the problem, and those of us who elected them.
Don’t like that plan? Then, the least we can
do, short-term, is support the National Taxpayers Union “One
Percent Spending Reduction Act” to get us started on real long
term solutions. Cut one cent of every dollar spent, each year
for six years, then cap spending at 18 percent of GDP in line
with annual revenue averages. No exemptions, except interest
payments on the national debt.
Get started on long-term solutions with a
vote to create a federal balanced budget requirement, with a
two-thirds supermajority protection against economy-damaging tax
hikes. Redo national healthcare reform, with a rational debate
using lessons we’ve learned so far from the ObamaCare and
RomneyCare experiments.
Admit we can’t afford to save the world, then
keep our returning troops employed on our national borders.
Teach our children history, including the 2011 “battle of the
budget,” which I’m hoping will have saved them from unendurable
debt.