Earlier this week, Arizona’s Republican Sen. Jon Kyl was identified as one of the 12 members of congress who will serve on the powerful Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.
The committee is tasked with formulating a plan that reduces the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. The ability of its members to make hard choices and come up with a viable strategy could prove a deciding factor in whether confidence will be restored in the American economy any time soon.
As a subscriber to conservative economic philosophy, Kyl is expected to insist on drastic spending cuts while opposing tax increases. We can also expect the left to lambast him for it, as if proposing that we live within our means amounted to Hitlarian fascism.
Finger pointing and exaggerated accusations are nothing new in Washington politics, but even by DC’s standards the rhetoric over last month’s debt ceiling debate has been exceptional.
According to Fox News, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., recently declared, “The budget deficit is an excuse for the Republicans to undermine government, plain and simple. They don’t just want to make cuts, they want to destroy. They want to destroy food safety, clean air, clean water, Department of Education. They want to destroy your rights, they do not like government.”
Obviously explosive claims such as these make for good sound bites and possibly good politics for the Democratic Party, but alas, the truth is a bit more nuanced than the idea that Republicans are just plain mean. Pelosi’s remarks are a case study in demagoguery.
The United States’ debt-to-GDP ratio is now at 100 percent, the highest level since World War II. This means that we currently owe exactly as much as the combined value of all goods and services we produce each year, about $14.5 trillion. Absent major fiscal policy reforms, that number will only rise.
According to a report issued by President Barack Obama’s appointed bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (better known as the Simpson-Bowles commission), “The problem is real. The solution will be painful. There is no easy way out. Everything must be on the table … America’s long-term fiscal gap is unsustainable and, if left unchecked, will see our children and grandchildren living in a poorer, weaker nation.”
We need not wonder what that weaker nation would look like; the evidence appears daily in headlines from around the world. Big government financed by excessive borrowing leads inevitably to a day of reckoning that especially hurts those most dependent upon the state.
According to Simpson-Bowles, “the contagion of debt that began in Greece and continues to sweep through Europe shows us clearly that no economy will be immune. If the U.S. does not put its (fiscal) house in order, the reckoning will be sure and the devastation severe.”
Ensuring a brighter future for the generations that follow us means responsibly managing our finances and accepting the limits of what we can afford. Believe it or not, government cannot do everything we wish that it could.
Fortunately, America has one great advantage — her people. The spirit of self-reliance burns in every American’s breast — tenth generation Americans and recently naturalized immigrants alike.
Getting this economy back on track will require that we accept the limits of government and return to the rugged individualism that made this country great.
Question David’s intelligence and/or character at dcolthar@asu.edu.
