By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Many Republican members of Congress, including all six members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation, have signed the Americans for Tax Reform’s pledge not to raise taxes, and mostly they stick to it. Many Democrats have signed a pledge not to mess with Social Security. But there’s no group asking members of Congress to pledge to reduce the national debt.

Much as I hate all these pledges, maybe there should be.

This past week, Congress rushed through two legislative packages that will make the national debt bigger. One was a package that permanently extended tax breaks that, in fairness, mostly were being routinely extended temporarily before. We’re now assured of adding $700 billion to the national debt over 10 years, whereas before we at least argued about it every year. All four members of Arkansas’ House delegation voted for the deal, which was consistent with the pledge they have signed.

And that wouldn’t be a problem, if Congress had voted to cut spending elsewhere to offset the tax cuts. Just as you and I ought to cut back on spending if we decide to take a job that pays less, Congress ought to cut spending if it cuts taxes.

Instead, Congress also voted this week for a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending package that increases spending by $50 billion. The 2,000-page bill is full of provisions that range from the important (allowing the U.S. to compete in the oil exporting market) to the mundane ($65 million for salmon restoration). It was negotiated by congressional leaders behind closed doors and then presented to the membership with little time for them to read it and nothing else on the table to avert a government shutdown.

To their credit, Arkansas’ senators, Sen. John Boozman and Sen. Tom Cotton, voted against both packages, which were combined in the Senate into one vote. In the House, Rep. Rick Crawford and Rep. Bruce Westerman get credit for voting against the spending package. Meanwhile, I can’t blame the two House members who voted for that package, Rep. French Hill and Rep. Steve Womack. Time was running out, there was no alternative, and many Republicans want to give new Speaker Paul Ryan, who helped broker the deal, a chance to succeed.

Also, the tax deal isn’t that much of a break from past policy. It mostly extended tax breaks permanently that were being extended temporarily year after year. Now at least we have clarity.

The problem is that once again, members of Congress voted to cut taxes, increase spending, and add to the debt because they don’t have enough motivations to behave differently. People often complain about “tax-and-spend liberals.” The truth is that most members of Congress often are “tax-cut-and-spend Republicans and Democrats.” And that’s why the national debt is creeping toward $19 trillion, or $58,000 for every American.

In signing the combined packages into law Friday, President Obama said, “I think the system worked.”

He’s right. The system worked perfectly. It did exactly what it was designed to do: Cut taxes, increase spending, and make the numbers work because the costs will be borne by future generations who don’t yet vote.

This has been going on for almost all of America’s history. According to the U.S. Treasury’s website, the national debt was $71 million in 1790, and then it dipped to less than $34,000 at the beginning of 1835, and it’s been pretty much rising ever since, until recently, when it exploded under your and my watch. It took about 191 years for it to reach $1 trillion and then needed 20 years to reach $6 trillion. Under the last two presidents, it’s grown another $13 trillion. As of Dec. 16, it was $18,796,279,678,290.28.

Two things can change this dynamic.

One is voluntary. Voters can elect fiscally responsible candidates. In office, those lawmakers must place as high a priority on future generations as they do on cutting taxes and increasing spending today. Would signing a pledge to reduce the debt help? It’s helped elsewhere.

More likely, there must be a mechanism, such as a balanced budget amendment, that makes it easier for elected officials to make responsible choices because, if they don’t, they’re breaking or at least skirting the law.

That way the system would work only when it does right by everyone – those who vote, those who don’t, and those who can’t because they’re too young or not yet born.

By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

This might only be early October, but for Congress, the fiscal year ended Sept. 30. If it were a school year, what kind of grade should Congress receive?

In math, probably an F.

In fiscal year 2015, the government spent $426 billion more than it collected, adding to a national debt that has now reached $18.2 trillion.

Congress should be looking for ways to improve those numbers. Instead, as pointed out by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, this year it increased deficit spending over the next 10 years in a variety of ways.

Meanwhile, when it comes to its most important assignments, Congress gets an incomplete. The federal government is supposed to be funded through 12 appropriations bills dealing with various areas of spending. The 2016 fiscal year has started, and so far the House has passed six, and the Senate has passed zero.

Because the government has to be funded somehow, Congress this week passed a continuing resolution, which basically keeps things as they are. That’s a problem when the status quo is a $426 billion deficit. This latest one will keep the government functioning until December – just before an election year – when Congress probably will pass another last-minute deal that doesn’t solve much long term.

On some assignments, Congress didn’t score an incomplete, but it was tardy. It waited until Dec. 19, 2014, to extend a series of tax deductions that had expired at the end of 2013, which meant businesses and individuals spent the entire year uncertain if those deductions would continue. Waiting so late defeats the theoretical purpose of having deductions, which is to encourage behavior that is good for the economy.

Unfortunately, there is no way to hold back Congress a year until it learns the material. It must be promoted to the next grade, where it will face ever-growing challenges.

There are two ways of measuring the debt: the total debt; and the debt held by the public, which doesn’t include what the government owes itself as a result of activities such as raiding the Social Security Trust Fund. The total debt is $18.2 trillion. The debt held by the public is $13.1 trillion.

The second figure is 74 percent of the gross domestic product. That’s the highest it has been since World War II. Historically, since 1965 the average has been 38 percent.

How do we get back to just being average? The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says that, taking the long view and setting 2040 as a goal, lawmakers should reduce total deficits over the next 10 years by $5 trillion. That puts the country on a path to 38 percent. But remember, Congress actually made things worse this past year, not better. So it’s not headed in the right direction.

In the short term, Congress must make some tough decisions quickly. In December, the government reaches the debt limit, which by law sets a ceiling on how high the national debt can go. Ultimately, the limit will be raised. The government can’t just stop going into debt without changing its habits any more than you and I can. Over the next couple of months, Congress’ assigned project is to raise the debt limit responsibly by tying it to meaningful reforms. If it does that, it gets a passing grade. If it does what it usually does – bicker until the last second and then pass the buck – it flunks the test again.

It’s students’ fault when they fail to learn the material, but it’s also the schools’ and the parents’. Elected officials are failing to complete their assignments. However, the classroom where they operate makes success almost impossible. The two-party duopoly, campaign finance laws, the filibuster, political consultants, the media environment – they’re all conspiring to turn Congress into an unworkable institution. The Founding Fathers rightly designed a government that was not meant to run smoothly. In today’s political climate, it’s often not running at all.

Meanwhile, kids tend to do what their parents will allow, and certainly what their parents encourage. If voters demanded fiscal responsibility, then even the most ill-behaved members of Congress would oblige, and even this imperfect system could be made to work.

If that were to happen, there wouldn’t need to be a group called the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. We’d already have one, it would be composed of 535 members, and it would have a different name: Congress.

By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Question: If the federal government were to reach the point where it couldn’t pay all its bills, who should be paid first?

A. Soldiers
B. Veterans
C. Investors, domestic and foreign, to whom the U.S. government owes money.

If you answered “C,” then you would agree with 24 Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee. They voted last week to advance legislation that would allow the government to keep borrowing money to pay U.S. Treasury bond investors, even if the government reached its supposed debt limit. Payments to Social Security’s trust funds also would continue.

Unfortunately, all 25 of you would be right. The 15 Democrats who make up a minority of the committee voted no, but that’s politics. If the majority and minority roles were reversed, then the Democrats likely would have done what is necessary to keep the U.S. from defaulting on its obligations for the first time ever.

The topic has come up because Congress once again is approaching one of those entirely foreseeable and often manufactured financial crises that threaten the economy and cause the world to question if the United States still knows what it’s doing.

This time, the federal government will exhaust its ability to borrow money in late October, which means it would reach its debt limit in the weeks that follow. Supposedly, that would mean the government couldn’t create more debt. In reality, it just would mean the government temporarily would stop paying its bills – which, of course, would have to be paid later.

That probably won’t happen. What will probably happen is what almost always happens: In Washington, they’ll posture and threaten and argue right up until the last minute, each side accusing the other of “kicking the can down the road,” the most overused cliche in politics these days. And then they’ll pass some measure that keeps the government running for a while – probably until after the November 2016 elections. And then we’ll be stuck wherever that can stopped rolling.

So why even consider that bill approved by the 24 Ways and Means Republicans? The United States government is considered a very safe investment, which is why taxpayers are paying very low interest rates on the $18.2 trillion national debt. Investors – everyone from middle class Americans to the Chinese government – reason that if anyone will pay their money back plus a little interest, it’s Uncle Sam.

What would happen if investors started to doubt that? A U.S. government default would rattle world markets. Meanwhile, interest rates on the debt would rise because investors would see Uncle Sam as more of a risk and would demand a higher return. More of your tax dollars would go into the pockets of investors, domestic and foreign, to pay for the debt the government has already incurred. Less would be available for soldiers and veterans.

Bad things happen when you don’t pay your bills.

At some point, this nonsense must stop. It’s time for the country to stop tiptoeing up to these fiscal cliffs like a teenager trying to scare his girlfriend, One of these days the rocks will be less steady than they seem, and then … well, let’s not be too dramatic. Let’s just say the kid slips several feet down the slope, sprains his ankle, and barely makes it back up the ledge where his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend is waiting.

There’s a simple reason why this keeps happening: Because the voters tolerate it. In fact, they reward it. Members of Congress know that playing these games probably won’t cost them an election. They can always blame the other party and say they did their best as part of a dysfunctional institution. Voters don’t really expect them to do differently. Meanwhile, if they were really to try to balance the budget – by some combination of spending cuts and tax reform that would increase revenues – they’d risk being voted out. Voters like their government programs, but they don’t want to pay for them.

Ultimately, the investors who are financing the national debt will get their money. So will soldiers and veterans, though not enough.

Also pretty certain is that the costs will be passed on to our children and grandchildren. Kids don’t vote, and they don’t donate money to campaigns. They depend on older generations to look out for their interests.

We’ve all apparently decided not to vote for that.