The NatIOnal Debt Dock IS seen February 19. 2CD4 111 New Yoril atv¡ According to a Treasury Oepart;ment report. the US government's nabOnal debt reached 8 total of more than $7 trillion for the first time.
Controlling the Deficit A bipartisan plan to stop runaway spending ______CB"y_'c"c,Cll Weinstein Jr. ohn McCai n was right. The GO P that once stood for fi scal res traint has vanished. As Senator McCain said lasl spring, today's Republ icans, at a lime of national crisis, "have thrown caution 10 the wind and continue 10 spend, :lIId spend. and spend-allthe wh ile cuning faxes. ~ h has bc.'Cn fi ve years sina America
J
had a record surplus of $236 billion and many were projecting the debt CQuid actually soon be erased. I-Iow limes have changed. Instead of securing Social Security for fmure generations a nd eliminating thC' ~debt lax" on our children, our political leaders have bought us a ticket o n a fiscal "runaway train" that is a serious and di rect threat 10 our mil ion's long-rernl economic health, Fiscal year 2004 closed with a $413 billion defi ci t and the 10 -year budget shortfall is projected 10 be $2.3 trillionassuming healthy econom ic growth, discretionary spending slows by two-thirds from itS recent pace, all lax cutS arc allowed to The Ripon Forum ¡ May/June 2005
expire on schedule, and nothing is done to reSHain the growing middle class bite of the alternative minimum tax. Using more plausible assumptions put forth by the bipartisan Concord Coalition . the projected 10year deficit is probably closer 10 $5 trillion. The Republican Party of Eisenhower, Ford and Reagan, the one thai believed in limited governm ent and the economic benefitS of balanced budgeu, would never have stood for this fiscal recklessness. But IOday's GOP has a difTerem attitude, one that is fa r more cavalier about the relevance of running sustai ned deficits. T his view is typified by Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, who dismissed the current record deficitS as "regrenable bur manageable. As a result, the current admi nistration and Republican-led Congress have presided over the largest fiscal meltdown in the history of our republic-tu rn ing record surpluses into record deficits. Whi le Republicans have argued that our burgeoning deficits are the result of pol icies K
www.ripollsoc.org
designed 10 move our country out of recession and to finance the cost of the war on terrorism, the reality is quite different. T ile Republican-led Congress is passing pork projects at a rate three times as great as the laSt time DemocratS comrolled both houses of Congress. and it is spending at levels not seen since World War " (on a per household basis, measured in constant dollars). Add billions of dollars in debt fina nced tax cutS to that mix, and you've gOt a recipe fo r fiscal disaster. C learl y, this is not your blher's GOP.
A Bipartisan Plan Why have Republicans in Congress and the Bush administra tion turned their back on their party's long history of fisca l restraint and smaller government? Is it an insatiable appetite fo r tax CutS at any COSt? Is it a belief that the public is indifferent to defici ts~ Or is it , as some of my fe llow Democrals have suggesled, an attempt to ~star ve the hcast by creating so much debt H
17