What label do you assign yourself politically? Liberal? Conservative? Something else? Some of us consider ourselves to be “deficit hawks.” And for us, these are dark days.

For deficit hawks, reducing the federal budget deficit is a top priority, even amidst all the other priorities that clamor for attention. Some of us believe that if something is worth having, then it’s worth paying for ourselves rather than sticking our grandchildren with the credit card bill.

There obviously aren’t many of us in the nation’s capital. The national debt, which was $5.7 trillion on Sept. 30, 2000, surpassed $21 trillion on March 14. It has almost quadrupled in less than 18 years.

That $21 trillion divided by 327 million Americans equals $64,348 per each of us – as of 6 p.m. Monday afternoon. By the time you read this, all of those numbers will be bigger.

A discouraging few months

The past few months have been especially discouraging for deficit hawks. In December, Congress and the president approved a $1.5 trillion tax cut that wasn’t offset by spending cuts. In February, they passed a budget deal making room for spending increases that could create $2 trillion in additional debt over the next 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. And that’s above the new debt that was already going to happen without the deal.

That deal set the stage for what happened last week, when Congress passed a $1.3 trillion spending package that offered something for everyone – an extra 14 percent for the military, an extra 12.5 percent for homeland security, etc.

You could argue these are all good things. I would go back to the third paragraph and argue that, if so, we ought to pay for them ourselves, or cut something somewhere, rather than stick our grandchildren with the bill.

How Arkansas’ congressional delegation voted

All six members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation voted for the tax cut. Only Rep. Bruce Westerman in the 4th District voted against the February budget deal. Westerman and Sen. Tom Cotton voted against the omnibus package. Sen. John Boozman and Reps. Rick Crawford, French Hill and Steve Womack voted for all three.

Some of the members of the delegation might describe themselves as deficit hawks.

In 2017, the federal government spent $4 trillion but only collected $3.3 trillion, leaving a $666 billion deficit for that year. This year’s deficit will be higher. Because of the three votes to cut taxes and raise spending, next year’s deficit likely will surpass $1 trillion.

You and I can’t borrow to pay our expenses forever, and neither can the government – not without a consequence.

How the hole could get deeper

This is all occurring during a time of relative peace and prosperity. Future wars and natural disasters will cause deficits to grow. Moreover, the economy has been expanding a long time, and as with gravity, what goes up eventually will come down. During the inevitable future recession, tax receipts will fall while human needs will rise, leading to bigger deficits.

Also foreseeable is that we might start paying higher interest rates on all this borrowed money.

Last year, interest on the debt totaled only $263 billion. Investors, foreign and domestic, accept low rates because they believe the U.S. government is a safe investment.

But the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says interest payments could quadruple and reach $1 trillion annually by 2028 – a result of the debt getting so big and because of rising interest rates.

If that happens, more of our tax dollars would pay for interest. Other needs would be shortchanged. By 2024, we could be spending more on interest than the military. We’d borrow even more than now from overseas lenders to defend ourselves against overseas threats. Meanwhile, the debt would keep growing.

All of this should alarm our elected officials. But they always have more pressing problems in front of them – particularly, the next election. They know they’ll more likely keep their seats by voting for tax cuts and spending increases while sticking our grandchildren with the credit card bill. In fact, there’s talk of another tax cut before this year’s elections.

In other words, there probably won’t be more deficit hawks in Washington until there are more deficit hawks in the voting booth.

By Steve Brawner

© 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Is your organization looking for a speaker to talk about what’s happening in state or national politics? Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist who appears in nine newspapers and is a regular guest on AETN’s “Arkansas Week.” He’s cheap but not free.