The Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial page overcomes, for a moment at least, its infatuation with Sen. Mark Warner and calls him to account for his mushy middleness on the federal budget:
Warner’s centrist approach obscures more than it clarifies. It sounds sensible and fair in the abstract. But as applied to the current situation it makes no sense. It’s like resolving a dispute between a bank and a bank robber by letting the robber keep half of what he stole. Everyone has to give up something in a negotiation, right?
What Warner and his more strident colleagues fail to note is this: Since 2008 total federal spending has risen by more than one-fourth, from $2.98 trillion to $3.8 trillion this year. If the federal government simply had held federal spending steady at 2008 levels, then it would have eliminated more than $1.75 trillion in accumulated debt. That comes to about $1.62 billion per day.
Alas, such spending rigor isn’t in the cards. Rather, the political class will serve us the weak tea they hope will help them avoid short-term blame for the mess we’re in.
Though there is a still a ray of hope for something called a “grand budget deal“:
The package to reduce the federal deficit by $4 trillion or more over 10 years is much more ambitious than negotiators envisioned just two weeks ago, and represents the most far-reaching of three options Mr. Obama presented to lawmakers Thursday in a closed-door meeting in the White House Cabinet Room.
To achieve such a reduction, negotiators likely would have to agree to spending cuts for domestic programs, defense and entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, as well as boost tax revenues. Most negotiators agree that spending reductions would outweigh any new revenues by a sizable margin, though significant reductions in tax breaks and deductions for businesses also likely would be part of the mix.
The entitlement cuts (which might include using a “chained” consumer price index), will rankle the Democrats and, even more, the entitlement lobbyists and beneficiaries, both of whom are quite skilled at bludgeoning pols who dare try to grab grandma’s Social Security check.
Republicans will chafe, and Grover Norquist will burst a blood vessel, over the tax hikes. Others, particularly in Virginia’s congressional delegation, will scream that any cuts to the nation’s longest-running and most successful jobs program — defense spending — are unthinkable.
Grand bargain or not, it will be an exceedingly difficult sell to either side.
Which brings us back to another, frequently ignored point about the current crisis:
…blame for the explosive growth in debt is bipartisan. Fiscal 2009 began on Oct. 1, 2008 — a month before Barack Obama was elected, three months before he took office, and probably six months before he had his sea legs under him. When the president says he inherited a mess, he speaks the truth.
The paper’s editorial writer also notes, quite correctly, that rather than address the mess, the President and Democratic-controlled Congress made it worse. Exponentially worse.
And right there adding to the heap was Sen. Mark Warner. He plumped for the stimulus bill that created few jobs, but added mightily to the debt and deficit. He voted for Obamacare, too, the greatest addition to the welfare state since, well, the Bush administration’s creation of the prescription drug benefit. His hands are as dirty, if not more so, than those he criticizes. Yet he would have us believe he is the voice of moderation.
A pox on them all…
(Cross-posted at Score Radio Network)
