Reflecting for a moment on this year’s congressional campaigns, we’ve been disappointed that so little attention has been paid to federal fiscal issues.
Congress will return for a lame-duck session Nov. 13 in which members will have to pass a series of nine budget bills to fund government services. Once they pass the measures, lawmakers will wash their hands of the mess they made. The new Congress will arrive to a $248 billion deficit. The figure could grow by $50 billion a year over the next decade as baby boomers draw on the funds they have put into Social Security and Medicare. During the Bush years, these funds have been used to sustain other government programs.
Medicare increases, fueled by 7 to 8 percent annual hikes in the cost of health care, have led some experts to believe that the nation’s budget problems cannot be fixed without comprehensive health reform. “No one’s been willing to touch it, but that’s what I see as front and center,” Dean Baker, an economist at the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research, told The Associated Press.
Our nation’s inability to live within its means has left us with a national debt of $8.6 trillion, a figure that climbs by $2.4 billion a day. Projections show it could reach $46 trillion over the next few decades.
David Walker, head of the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, has been touring the country and preaching fiscal responsibility. He has committed to spread the message through the 2008 elections. “This is about the future of our country, our kids and grandkids,” Walker told a group recently in Austin, Texas. “We the people have to rise up to make sure things get changed.”
Interest charges on all this debt accrue in risky fashion. Increasingly the debt is owned by foreign powers such as China, which gives them leverage over the U.S. and undermines national security.
The national debt began its climb in the 1980s, pausing in the late 1990s when the government was running a surplus. Now it is growing again, partly because of the enormous price-tag associated with U.S. operations in Iraq.
It’s clear that the 110th U.S. Congress must put fiscal discipline on its list of key priorities.
