Mr. President: Take a Stand on Entitlement SpendingPresident Barack Obama can reasonably claim that his new budget is fairer and less dishonest than the ideas advanced by his opponents. But it's not enough to say that your numbers are better than the other guys' when you've just presented a budget that by its own reckoning allows spending on entitlements to crowd out nearly everything else because the administration has failed to take a principled stand on the biggest long-term threat to the nation's fiscal well-being. Obama's 2013 budget, announced Monday, feels more like a political document than a living, breathing budget plan. And it's not going anywhere in a House dominated by Republicans itching to send Obama packing or in a Senate with too few brave hearts in either party. Obama's renewed commitment to infrastructure spending, domestic manufacturing and reasonable tax burdens is heartening. So are good ideas such as investing more money in energy programs and job training. But the president's budget lacks backbone. Using his budget's own numbers, Social Security will rise 27 percent over the next 10 years; Medicare and Medicaid will rise a combined 41 percent as military spending falls 23 percent and "discretionary" spending — everything else — drops nearly 20 percent. As The Washington Post's Ezra Klein has remarked dryly, the U.S. government is essentially "an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army." Obama is right when he says that "reining in our deficits is not an end in itself" and when he says that "we are facing a make-or-break moment for the middle class." He's also right when he says that this is "the defining issue of our time." But saying it and acting on that belief are two different things. Even using Obama's rosy projections (expecting economic growth of 3 percent this year as but one example), his budget still would leave national debt at a crushing 76.5 percent of national output 10 years from now.
The president proposes higher taxes on the wealthy by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire on the highest income tax brackets, by limiting deductions for higher-income taxpayers and by requiring millionaires to pay at least 30 percent of their income to Uncle Sam. Obama is also recommending eliminating the alternative minimum tax. We agree: Tax revenue needs to rise. But the government needs a long-term plan for both cutting spending and increasing revenue to meet the challenges that lie just ahead. We don't see that in the Obama budget request. Where is Obama's plan for fundamental tax reform, which is a lot better than tinkering with tax brackets? Where is his plan to keep Medicare and Social Security solvent? What about Medicaid? Obama's budget is a better alternative than what we could expect from the Republicans running for president. They are counting on massive spending cuts (which they refuse to identify) coupled with more tax cuts to do the job. They are living in an alternative universe if they really believe what they are saying. What's really needed is a realistic, long-term approach to the biggest budget-eaters - military spending, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Those four broad categories occupy 68 percent of the space in the federal budget. With more than two-thirds of the federal budget consumed by military spending and insurance programs, cutting spending for everything else — as the GOP candidates propose — doesn't do much to bring budgets under control and harms the nation's well-being by cutting funds for roads, bridges, rail projects and a host of other necessary government spending. Pandering to the tax-cut gods makes the problem worse. "An avowedly liberal administration is gutting government because it lacks the political will to confront programs for the elderly," is how Robert J. Samuelson, a columnist for The Washington Post, put it. Unfortunately, based on this budget, we'd say Samuelson has it right.
REPRINTED FROM THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
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