Returning fiscal sanity to Washington one step at a time
(D-Maine)
On Thursday, February 4, 2010, Congress sent the President a bill that will finally ensure that the federal government does what all Maine families do: live within their means. And it’s a long time coming.
A budget law known as “pay-as-you-go” or PAYGO, requires that any new federal entitlements and tax breaks be off-set with cuts elsewhere in the budget. This ensures that policies passed by Congress do not grow annual deficits and add to the national debt.
This commonsense budget enforcer was abandoned in 2002 when congressional leaders allowed it to expire. Since that time, deficits have grown and grown. We went from budget surpluses in the 1990s, when PAYGO was the law of the land, to record deficits in each year following the expiration of the PAYGO law.
Since that time, we have built up an unbelievable amount of debt – each year of budget deficits built on each other and gave us over an $11 trillion national debt.
This fiscal path is clearly unsustainable. That’s why it is so important that the federal government will once again be required to adhere to the rules of PAYGO, which are not unlike the decisions Mainers have to make everyday. If a family decides to make home improvements, they may have to forgo a vacation or trim their family budget elsewhere. Now, under PAYGO, if Congress wants to increase mandatory spending or cut taxes, it will have to tighten the fiscal belt elsewhere.
While I have been disappointed that PAYGO has been waived by the Senate on occasion, the bill that we sent to the President has a failsafe mechanism in it to ensure that this new budget law can no longer be ignored – if policies enacted during a session of Congress increase the deficit, there will be an automatic across-the-board cut in the budget.
And the stakes for our county are high. Something that is underreported, but important to understand is how much our country pays each year to “service” our debt. Maine families who have mortgages or credit card bills pay interest on those loans, and the federal government does the same with its debt.
Unbelievably, the interest we already pay each year on the national debt is more than we spend on education and veterans combined. When PAYGO is signed into law by the President, we can begin to reduce deficits, reduce our interest obligations, and invest in our national priorities.
And while the reinstatement of PAYGO is a huge step in the right direction, it is not enough alone to help bring our nation’s fiscal house in order. That’s why I joined with my fellow Blue Dog colleagues to introduce a “Blueprint for Fiscal Reform,” which is designed to put forth ideas to balance the budget within 10 years. In addition to reinstituting PAYGO, the plan includes a number of commonsense budget measures as well as the establishment of a fiscal commission that would be responsible for making recommendations on reforming spending and reducing deficits.
It has become evident that members on both sides of the aisle have not been able to muster the political courage to effectively rein in deficits. Years of fiscal mismanagement and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression have put our nation’s fiscal health in danger. A fiscal commission would remove politics from the equation and help restore long-term budget discipline – something that would complement the new PAYGO law’s aim of curbing annual deficits.
While I am disappointed that the Senate voted this idea down, I appreciate that the President has stepped up to the plate and embraced this approach by committing to create a commission by executive order.
I have been extremely frustrated with Washington’s inability to address our record deficits. But at the end of the day, we cannot have a true economic recovery unless we encourage job creation and get serious about addressing our nation’s debt. That’s why it’s important to keep up the pressure and pass budget reforms, even if it is one step at a time.
