The Budget Deficit

Politicians are generally regarded as people who negotiate between themselves to create public policy. Negotiation is generally agreed to involve compromises by those on both sides of an issue. Therefore, through deductive reasoning, we can agree that politicians are generally supposed to compromise to create public policy. As Congress has been trying to reduce the budget deficit in exchange for raising the debt ceiling (which must be done to avoid a catastrophic sucker punch to our economy), there has been curiously little compromise going on in Capitol Hill.

Democrats prefer a plan to reduce the deficit which would mostly include spending cuts but would also include some tax hikes. Republicans want a plan that will reduce the deficit through only spending cuts- including significant reductions in entitlement spending. Right now, it seems like Democrats are compromising on the necessity of deep levels of spending cuts, but are refusing to compromise on cutting entitlement spending. Republicans, meanwhile, are compromising on... nothing. It really is pathetic. We are trying to reduce the deficit by either $2 trillion or $4 trillion over 10 years (depending on who you ask). You cannot do that with only spending cuts. To cut $4 trillion from the deficit, you'd probably have to cut discretionary spending 75% and basically get rid of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. It's ridiculous. As President Obama said, "Everybody else has been willing to move off their maximalist position — they [Republicans] need to do the same."

John Boehner, unsurprisingly, has refused to even think about considering solving the budget crisis by increasing revenue. The main reason that the Republicans are refusing to budge on the budget is because, to them, this is not about actually lowering the debt. This debate is really about accomplishing an ideological goal of theirs to reduce the size of government. They're using the budget crisis as a convenient excuse to act on their ideology. Obviously they do want to reduce budget deficits, but it's more important to them that government's size is slashed- even if this means that we might default on our debt obligations. This is unfair. Even if Republicans think at the bottom of their hearts that America can only be prosperous with a much smaller government, it's extremely wrong and dishonest for them to pretend that they're trying to solve one problem, when really they're focusing on another "problem."

Grover Norquist, probably the most powerful

lobbyist in America

Republican leaders have been able to keep their party members in line in favor of absolutely no tax increases of any kind by pointing to a "no new taxes" pledge that all but 13 Republicans in Congress have signed. The pledge was pioneered by some guy named Grover Norquist, who is the head of the interest group Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist, it turns out, is actually one of the most powerful politicians in the country, because Republicans are deathly scared to violate his no tax pledge. They are so scared of violating this pledge that, for example, Republicans won't even consider ending tax subsidies that they don't support because that is, in effect, a tax hike, which they are sworn to defend against to the death. Let me put this whole situation into perspective for you. One random guy is basically controlling half of our government through a piece of paper. I don't remember ever seeing Grover Norquist on a ballot. Do you?

President Obama made a very good point about what Republicans want in a budget deficit agreement. He said, "if we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship.  That means we’ve got to stop funding certain grants for medical research.  That means that food safety may be compromised." It seems like to Republicans, it's more important to protect the richest people in the country than to get rid of our budget deficit in a smart, equitable way.

Obviously this country needs to do something to reduce our budget deficit. It is the biggest problem this country faces- more important than the high unemployment rate, in my opinion. But we have to be rational and logical while we try to solve this problem. We have to realize that reducing the budget deficit will require significant budget cuts and tax increases. We have to realize that we will need to do something to make entitlements, especially Medicare, cost less. But we need to do this responsibly. Rather than, for example, privatizing Medicare as Republicans suggest, we could expand on cost-cutting measures that are already included in the recent healthcare reform bill and make them take effect sooner. We have to realize also that reducing the budget deficit will not create jobs as Republicans claim but will actually cost us jobs. It can be tough to accept these hard truths, which is why it seems like many Republicans (and Democrats) prefer to delude themselves and their constituents about what they can get out of a budget reduction deal. But if our politicians really want to do what's best for this country, they have to face the truth and reach an equitable, logical agreement on reducing, and hopefully eliminating, our budget deficit.