In some conservative quarters there is grumbling over the
federal deficit. For example, pundit Andrew Sullivan
notes:
Where I differ from others is in their belief that deficits
don’t matter; that government debt is no problem; and that
drastically increasing that debt just before the entitlement crunch
hits is good politics or economics. I think we need to decrease
spending while we decrease taxes. At the very least, I think we
should hold a line on spending while we decrease taxes. What I
cannot support is vastly increasing spending while you cut taxes.
Call me crazy, but I regard this as a question of responsibility.
We have a responsibility not to leave the next generation in a huge
hole of our making. At this point, it’s clear that the Republican
Party, at all levels, is simply fiscally irresponsible.
It’s a fair criticism. The Bush Administration has been woefully
inept at holding the line on spending; and during the last years of
the Clinton Administration when the budget was in surplus,
Congressional Republicans were, in general, all too willing to
partake of a spending orgy. With a few notable exceptions,
conservative commentators have not been as hard on Bush and the GOP
about spending as they should have. The reason, however, is that
while we dislike deficits, we loathe deficit politics.
Indeed, the deficit game is rigged so that conservatives always
lose. Let’s look at the ways the playing field is tilted:
1. Deficits Invoked Against Tax Cuts, Not
Spending. A headline on last Thursday’s Washington
Post editorial page read
“Debt and Taxes.” Do you suppose we’ll ever see a liberal-newspaper
editorial titled “Debt and Prescription Drug Coverage”? While tax
cuts always raise the specter of deficits in the mainstream media,
the same cannot be said of new spending programs. Where was all the
concern about deficits regarding Tom Harkin’s farm bill or Ted
Kennedy’s education bill? In fact, many of the same Democrats that
are carping most about deficits now —Kennedy, Tom Daschle, Nancy
Pelosi, Dick Gephardt — are the same ones who voted against the
Balanced Budget Amendment in the mid-1990s. Liberals are concerned
about deficits only insofar as they are useful in defeating tax
cuts.
2. Spending Cuts Are Evil. Remember the last
time the Republicans in Congress made a serious attempt at
controlling spending, like reforming entitlements such as Medicaid?
To listen to certain liberal politicians and pundits, the Fourth
Reich had arrived. Democrats accused the GOP of wanting to hurt the
elderly, the children, and the poor. It helped get Bill Clinton
re-elected and the Democrats take back nine seats in the House in
1996. Perhaps it is a bit unreasonable to ask the GOP to go through
that again.
3. The Deficit Game Results in Tax Increases.
Two of the last three major deficit-reduction packages (1990 and
1993) enacted by the federal government included historic tax
increases. The justifications for these tax hikes included the need
to sacrifice and the responsibility of some to pay their “fair
share.” And what do conservatives get in return? Well, once the
budget begins running a surplus, politicians on both sides resume
their profligate ways, while tax-cut advocates have to pull teeth
to achieve any policy victories. As Ramesh Ponnuru puts it, “The
rules of the game in Washington ensure that tax cuts are a matter
of intense deliberation, while spending goes up on autopilot.”
Clearly, conservatives are not eager to play the deficit game
again, at least until the rules are seriously altered. The $6.4
trillion question is how do we change the rules? First, Congress
should consider limiting non-entitlement, non-defense spending to
increases in population growth and inflation. The state of Colorado
has a similar limit on its budget, and is currently one of the few
states not facing a major budget crunch. Such a rule applied to the
federal government could do a good deal to hold down spending.
Next, Congress should reform the budget process. Under the
current rules, each year’s budget is supposed to be finished by
September 30. This means that during an election year, the budget
must be finished about six weeks before the election. This
undoubtedly creates pressure to boost spending as members of
Congress want to maximize their re-election chances by sending all
sorts of goodies back home to the voters. Instead, Congress should
adopt a two-year budget that must be completed in a non-election
year. This won’t alleviate all of the pressure to spend, but it
will mitigate it.
Finally, President Bush should consider another commission along
the lines of the Grace Commission. Call it the “Government
Efficiency Commission,” it would be charged with studying the
federal government for a year and making recommendations on which
government programs should be cut or eliminated. The GEC’s proposal
would be introduced as legislation and Congress would have to take
an up-or-down vote — i.e., no amendments — on it. Such a reform
would be even more potent if it required that the GEC be
reconstituted every five years.
Surely there are many other good ideas which could bring
deficits to heel as well. Nevertheless, conservatives are wary of
playing the deficit game again. Given recent history, who can blame
them?
