The national debt is approaching $12 trillion. That’s $12,000,000,000,000. A stack of that many one-dollar bills could go to the moon and back — nearly twice.
The budget deficit for fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, was a staggering, record-shattering $1.42 trillion.
The Obama administration and Democrats in Congress argue that massive spending was necessary to buoy the economy from its worst turmoil since the Great Depression. We get that, and generally agree. Besides, who knows? Maybe a chunk of the money that went to bail out failing financial and auto giants might get repaid. Someday.
But can we stop for a reality check? We had a massive national debt before the recession started. Elected leaders from both parties always acknowledge it, always vow that they’ll address it. Someday.
Trouble is, someday is always farther off than today’s political pressures. Politically, it’s far more advantageous to butter up certain constituencies with more spending or a choice tax cut than to wrestle with fiscal responsibility, which is sure to make everybody angry.
The president wants to write $250 checks to seniors because they didn’t get a cost-of-living increase in their Social Security this year. Never mind that there was no cost-of-living increase to offset. And congressional Democrats don’t want a necessary increase in Medicare reimbursement rates, which has strong bipartisan support, to be counted as part of the cost of health-care reform. It would make reform’s price tag unacceptably high.
What’s another $250 billion over 10 years on an already maxed-out tab?
At this rate, someday is never going to come. Congress, no matter which party is in charge, isn’t capable of dealing with this problem on its own.
That’s why the creation of a commission modeled after the successful military base closure commissions of recent years makes so much sense. It’s being proposed by a bipartisan coalition of influential centrists in the Senate, and ought to be adopted this year.
Like the base-closure commissions, an expert deficit-reduction panel would study alternatives and recommend a plan to Congress, which would either approve it or reject it in whole. No tinkering. No special-interest deals. Just an up-or-down vote. Just the kind of political cover most members of Congress need to do the right thing.
Washington Post columnist David Broder reports that momentum may be building for this. Seize it, we say. Now.
Because someday never seems to arrive.
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