Des Moines Register
Being the leadoff state in the selection of an American president carries
certain responsibilities.
Asking potential chief executives just how they'd deal with various
problems is one of them.
Last week, a group of leading economic and fiscal experts came through
Iowa with a request: Ask the candidates what - precisely - they'd do about
the $50 trillion in debt, insurance obligations and other commitments the
country has amassed.
"The biggest threat facing the United States today is not terrorism," said
David Walker, the comptroller general of the United States and the head of
the General Accountability Office. "Iraq is a big problem, but it's a
temporary problem. Arguably the biggest threat facing the United States
today is our own fiscal irresponsibility. Very few people are willing to
state the facts and speak the truth."
Walker, along with Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution, Stuart
Butler from the Heritage Foundation and Robert Bixby, the executive
director of the Concord Coalition, were in Iowa as part of the coalition's
"Fiscal Wake Up Tour" around the country. Their mission is to do what Paul
Revere or Winston Churchill did in their day: Sound warnings.
According to a report issued last week by the GAO, "the federal
government's financial condition and fiscal outlook are worse than many
may understand. Despite an increase in revenues in fiscal year 2006 of
about $255 billion, the federal government reported that its costs
exceeded its revenues by $450 billion and that its cash outlays exceeded
its cash receipts by $248 billion."
The present value of all the obligations and liabilities of the federal
government, such as for Social Security and Medicare, "rose from $20
trillion to about $50 trillion in the last 6 years."
Thanks to federal spending and entitlement programs and an aging
population, "the federal government's current fiscal policy is
unsustainable. Continuing on this imprudent and unsustainable path will
gradually erode, if not suddenly damage our economy, our standard of
living and ultimately our domestic tranquility and national security," the
report said.
The warnings from the experts who visited Iowa can't be ignored. They
represent the left, the right and the center of American political
thought. Their comments point to several conclusions.
First, we must think bigger than just the annual budget deficit. This is
also about the total debt. How will we - and our grandchildren - pay all
that we owe?
We must also think differently. The nation's political dialog about this
subject is repetitious and shopworn. Republicans have to give us more than
rhetoric about tax cuts. Democrats can't just call for soaking the rich.
The solution will take both revenue increases and benefit cuts.
So conservatives should think about ways to increase revenues to cover
these bills. Liberals must think about ways to reduce the cost of social
programs and entitlement benefits such as Medicare and Social Security.
It will all be painful. The longer we wait, the greater the pain will be.
In addition, federal policies must be geared to things that grow the
nation's economy. Economic growth will reduce the demand for federal
services and generate the tax revenues needed to pay for the ones we need
- or the debts we owe.
The GAO report concludes that "tough choices by the President and the
Congress are necessary to address the nation's large and growing long-term
fiscal imbalance."
So let's not overlook the admonition from the coalition's Bixby: "Ask them
how they'll pay for what they propose."
DAVID YEPSEN can be reached at
dyepsen@dmreg.com or (515) 284-8545.