Evangelicals for Social Action’s Concrete Proposals for Intergenerational Justice And the American Debt Crisis1 Large federal budget deficits that continue year after year produce an escalating national debt that leads to economic disaster. Continuing the current pattern of deficits would mean that by 2025, all federal revenues would be needed simply to pay for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and interest on the national debt. The federal government would need to borrow every cent it paid for everything else including national defense, homeland security, law enforcement, education, etc. (Domenici/Rivlin, 12). We must dramatically reduce annual deficits at least to the point where in future decades the national debt is no more than 60% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (That level is widely accepted as satisfactory by economists). To do that in a just way, we must both reduce our annual expenditures and also increase government income in a way that empowers rather than harms the poorer members of society. That will require: I. Cutting Some Federal Expenditures a. Agricultural programs b. Defense budget c. Symbolic but useful changes II. Controlling Medical Expenses III. Making Social Security Sustainable IV. Fundamental Tax Reform V. Maintaining and Expanding Effective Programs that Empower Poor People Here and Abroad
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We have drawn on the provisions of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (Dec. 2010), chaired by former Republican Senator Alan Simpson and former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles (hereafter Simpson/Bowles) and Restoring America’s Future (Nov. 17, 2010) chaired by former Republican Senator Pete Domenici and Clinton Office of Management and Budget Director Alice Rivlin (hereafter Domenici/Rivlin).
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