Week of reckoning
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-ryan-20110411,0,7594214.story
Resolve by Republican lawmakers has forced Congress to curb federal spending by tens of billions of dollars — reductions that over time should compound into the hundreds of billions. Meanwhile a Democratic president, eager to show that he too is a responsible steward, on Wednesday will propose his own cuts to salvage imperiled entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid and, by some reports, Social Security.
That's right. Five months after Americans voted their fury over deficits and spending, the nation is consumed by debate over the size, power and taxing reach of virtually all governments — but especially the one on Capitol Hill. There the fundamental divide splits lawmakers who understand the peril of the rapidly expanding U.S. debt load and the dwindling number still in denial.
President Barack Obama until now has stayed to the sidelines, no doubt hoping Republicans would risk political annihilation by urging less spending on popular entitlements. We wonder, though, if Obama's abrupt desire to float his own plan means he has come to accept a compelling point that U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., made Monday to the Tribune editorial board: "What if your congressman, your president, knew what was coming and did nothing?" asked Ryan, who chairs the House Budget Committee. "What would you think of that guy?"
The long-range rescue plan that Ryan issued last week confronts a truth that pols of both parties have dodged for decades: Federal entitlement programs increasingly are havens for empty promises — vast, underfunded obligations on which future generations cannot rely. Americans who criticize as too disruptive this GOP proposal to gradually rescue entitlements are, he says, "measuring us against a fiscal fallacy … against a future that's not going to happen." The programs simply have to evolve because, as currently structured, taxpayers can't sustain them. We concur with Ryan that repairing entitlements gradually, on our own terms, can pre-empt the sort of meltdown that some European governments are enduring.
That will mean reducing annual deficits and attacking accumulated debt. This week, House Republicans likely will approve a fiscal 2012 budget resolution that would address the deficits by underspending what Obama proposed in February. The imminent battle, though, will be over the president's call for raising the government's debt limit above the current $14.3 trillion. Ryan said Monday that Republicans will seek both spending cuts, and caps, before they consent to raising the limit. The politics of opposing such demands would be tricky for Obama. On Monday the White House said the president now regrets his own vote against raising the debt limit in 2006. The then-senator from Illinois declared on the Senate floor: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. … Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren."
Millions of Americans have since come to precisely that conclusion. Which essentially explains the rush in Washington to suggest spending reductions that Americans now will accept, however grudgingly. "Everyone tells me that I'm giving our political adversaries this massive political weapon to use in the next campaign," Ryan told us Monday. "Yes, we are. But you know, if you don't start fixing these things …"
Ryan is betting that Americans want solutions. Obama may be thinking the same, although his plan will include tax increases as well as changes in spending.
So we're down to two simple steps:
Step One, well under way, is for every citizen to realize that the nation cannot continue to spend and borrow as it has — especially now that 47 percent of our public debt is in foreign hands.
Step Two is to admit that, unless we want to hand our children and grandchildren a failing nation, we need to do something right now about Step One.
_______________________________________________________________
Let's see how Obama rises to the challenge.
If he plays it well he will get re elected and then if the discipline is there on lower spending and not expanding the debt he can raise marginal tax rates without worrying about going down in flames.
When in 1990 Canada's Prime Minister Brian Mulroney brought in a 7% federal sales tax called the GST to replace a hidden manufacturers 11% federal tax (FST) he was soundly routed in the next federal election and the conservative party was reduced to a rump 5 or 6 seats in parlament.
Jean Creatien ran on abolishing the GST but after getting a majority kept it only slightly modifying it and today it is one of the reasons Canada has it's fiscal house in order with one of the world's strongest economies, a 20% federal corporate tax rate, and a dollar worth more than the american greenback.
A true leader will lead people where they need to but don't want to go even at the cost of sacrificing himself in the short run for his legacy.
We'll see if Obama becomes more than Toonces the driving cat
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-ryan-20110411,0,7594214.story
Resolve by Republican lawmakers has forced Congress to curb federal spending by tens of billions of dollars — reductions that over time should compound into the hundreds of billions. Meanwhile a Democratic president, eager to show that he too is a responsible steward, on Wednesday will propose his own cuts to salvage imperiled entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid and, by some reports, Social Security.
That's right. Five months after Americans voted their fury over deficits and spending, the nation is consumed by debate over the size, power and taxing reach of virtually all governments — but especially the one on Capitol Hill. There the fundamental divide splits lawmakers who understand the peril of the rapidly expanding U.S. debt load and the dwindling number still in denial.
President Barack Obama until now has stayed to the sidelines, no doubt hoping Republicans would risk political annihilation by urging less spending on popular entitlements. We wonder, though, if Obama's abrupt desire to float his own plan means he has come to accept a compelling point that U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., made Monday to the Tribune editorial board: "What if your congressman, your president, knew what was coming and did nothing?" asked Ryan, who chairs the House Budget Committee. "What would you think of that guy?"
The long-range rescue plan that Ryan issued last week confronts a truth that pols of both parties have dodged for decades: Federal entitlement programs increasingly are havens for empty promises — vast, underfunded obligations on which future generations cannot rely. Americans who criticize as too disruptive this GOP proposal to gradually rescue entitlements are, he says, "measuring us against a fiscal fallacy … against a future that's not going to happen." The programs simply have to evolve because, as currently structured, taxpayers can't sustain them. We concur with Ryan that repairing entitlements gradually, on our own terms, can pre-empt the sort of meltdown that some European governments are enduring.
That will mean reducing annual deficits and attacking accumulated debt. This week, House Republicans likely will approve a fiscal 2012 budget resolution that would address the deficits by underspending what Obama proposed in February. The imminent battle, though, will be over the president's call for raising the government's debt limit above the current $14.3 trillion. Ryan said Monday that Republicans will seek both spending cuts, and caps, before they consent to raising the limit. The politics of opposing such demands would be tricky for Obama. On Monday the White House said the president now regrets his own vote against raising the debt limit in 2006. The then-senator from Illinois declared on the Senate floor: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. … Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren."
Millions of Americans have since come to precisely that conclusion. Which essentially explains the rush in Washington to suggest spending reductions that Americans now will accept, however grudgingly. "Everyone tells me that I'm giving our political adversaries this massive political weapon to use in the next campaign," Ryan told us Monday. "Yes, we are. But you know, if you don't start fixing these things …"
Ryan is betting that Americans want solutions. Obama may be thinking the same, although his plan will include tax increases as well as changes in spending.
So we're down to two simple steps:
Step One, well under way, is for every citizen to realize that the nation cannot continue to spend and borrow as it has — especially now that 47 percent of our public debt is in foreign hands.
Step Two is to admit that, unless we want to hand our children and grandchildren a failing nation, we need to do something right now about Step One.
_______________________________________________________________
Let's see how Obama rises to the challenge.
If he plays it well he will get re elected and then if the discipline is there on lower spending and not expanding the debt he can raise marginal tax rates without worrying about going down in flames.
When in 1990 Canada's Prime Minister Brian Mulroney brought in a 7% federal sales tax called the GST to replace a hidden manufacturers 11% federal tax (FST) he was soundly routed in the next federal election and the conservative party was reduced to a rump 5 or 6 seats in parlament.
Jean Creatien ran on abolishing the GST but after getting a majority kept it only slightly modifying it and today it is one of the reasons Canada has it's fiscal house in order with one of the world's strongest economies, a 20% federal corporate tax rate, and a dollar worth more than the american greenback.
A true leader will lead people where they need to but don't want to go even at the cost of sacrificing himself in the short run for his legacy.
We'll see if Obama becomes more than Toonces the driving cat