Washington needs to balance its budget

By Heath Haussamen

The media on Monday shouted out the news that President Bush will leave office with a record deficit of $482 billion this year. The previous high came during another Bush-presidency year, 2004.

Liberal Web sites were quick to pounce. The Huffington Post headlined its coverage of the issue “forever in your debt” with a photo underneath of Bush waving. Daily Kos labeled the deficit “Bush’s little parting gift to our nation.”

There is a lot of truth in their criticism. But there’s far more behind the nation’s deficit than the policies of the Bush administration.

Kos, whose real name is Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, cited the fact that Bush inherited a $128 billion surplus when he took office and pointed out that the previous record deficit of $413 billion came “during the GOP trifecta, when they had control of all branches of government.”

“If the last eight years have taught us anything, it’s that Republicans have no clue how to manage our nation’s finances,” he wrote.

Wait a minute: Congress has a role in this too, as Kos admitted when writing about 2004. So why doesn’t the Congress that’s now controlled by Democrats share some blame for this year’s deficit?

It does, of course. What have congressional Democrats done to rein in the out-of-control spending of a president who claims to be a conservative but doesn’t spend like one? Very little. In light of this year’s record deficit, you could argue that congressional Democrats have done nothing to stop Bush.

And the bipartisan work of the Clinton years to balance the budget is gone.

MasterCard won’t get us out of this mess

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., released a statement claiming that Bush “has mortgaged our future,” but Democrats have begun to work to fix the problems. She cited bipartisan work on tax rebates, a new GI Bill and efforts to fix the housing crisis.

She’s taking the view that America can spend its way out of its financial mess, or at least trying to spin the news that way to deflect criticism. Give people their money back and they’ll spend more and we’ll get more tax dollars to spend. Spend more on college for our troops. Bail out homeowners so they can recover their financial health and spend more.

There’s no balance in that view of balancing the budget. Stimulating the economy to generate revenue is half of the equation. The other is saving money by controlling spending.

The Democrats are joining Bush in failing to do that. Hence the largest deficit in the history of the United States, two years into the Democrats’ rule of Congress. In two years, they’ve not been able to counter the out-of-control spending of the president? Give me a break. They could if they made it a priority.

The 2001 recession and the 9/11 terrorist attacks certainly contributed to this situation, which was exacerbated significantly by a Republican president and Congress who ran amok for years. But it wasn’t just Republicans who approved lots of money to invade Afghanistan, and then Iraq, in response to the attacks.

Though there are widely differing opinions on Bush’s response to the terrorist attacks, most agree that at least some war spending was justified. Rainy days happen. That’s why it’s so important to save for them. I realize we live in a capitalistic society, but that doesn’t mean the phrase “for everything else, there’s MasterCard” is a bit of wisdom. It isn’t.

A balanced budget requirement — with an emergency, wartime exemption — and some money in reserve are critical to the long-term health of the nation. It’s time for another serious push for a balanced budget amendment. And it’s time for some honesty on this issue. Americans understand that this and so many other issues are problems with Washington, not problems with Bush alone. The failure of Democrats and Republicans in Washington to admit their bipartisan failure, put down their guns and actually try to resolve these problems is why Congress is even less popular than the president.