What's up with our National Debt?

I am fiscally responsible. And I truly believe that if I were an elected official I would follow my principles when allocating the budget. Many, if not all, elected officials believe they will do the same, at least before they are elected. So what changes when they are given America’s purse strings?

I am sure you have heard members of both parties talk about taking a stand and not running up massive government debt that future generations will have to pay. Additionally, they often take aim at political opponents and point out fiscal recklessness. Other than Dick Cheney (who pointed out that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter”), there seems to be consensus among politicians that deficits matter and make us weaker. Yet, year after year we see the budget fall further and further in the red.

The truth – sorry Mr. Cheney – is most politicians are right that deficits and national debt DO matter and they WILL be passed down to future generations, who will have to make huge and unfair sacrifices to pay for our mistakes. The solution, unfortunately, is extremely difficult and guaranteed to be unpopular – which matters to politicians who have to rely on popularity to keep their jobs.

According to Senator Voinovich’s Web site, who was my childhood Governor, the national debt is 12.5 trillion dollars and growing. So with such a ridiculously high debt, why don’t our elected officials simply spend within our means?

The answer is that it is even less popular to actually do something about the debt then to be blamed for being fiscally reckless. If you were an elected official, how would you decrease this monstrous debt?

First, it is important to note that less than 40 percent of our budget can be cut, without difficult changes in the law. The part of the budget that can be axed is called discretionary spending. Of these expenses half is spent on the Department of Defense budget, which is nearly $700 billion per year.

Would you cut earmarks? Sweet, you just stopped money from going straight to your state for that new hospital, research center, highway or park. And even if you are okay with that, you are only saving $20 billion a year – barely a drop in the bucket with more than $12 trillion debt.

I have it! Let’s stop helping states avoid cutting teachers, police, firefighters and judges! That would be perfect! Not quite. Even if we did, it would barely dent our debt but leave future generations even worse off than if we just saddled them with insurmountable debt.

We, the taxpayers, always expect government to do more with less; that is why we want tax cuts and service increases. But we must be pragmatic with the federal budget and demand our elected officials do the same. We irresponsibly demand tax cuts to stimulate the economy (by the way, how did those $1.8 trillion tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 work for the financial crisis of 2008?), and then are outraged that our communities are falling apart, federal scholarships are not increasing at the rate of tuition and pot holes become the norm. We want government to solve our problems – and polls show this to be true – yet expect this to happen at no cost.

We, the voters, either need to allow (and reward) politicians to make tough decisions or quit pretending that we are appalled they are doing EXACTLY what we demand.