Fiscal Doomsday in the Offing

Some members of Congress of both parties have argued for months, if not years, that the lack of spending restraint, coupled with the penchant for ever-larger tax cuts, cannot be allowed to go on. Their cautions have gone unheeded.

Now they are finding credible allies. David Walker, the comptroller general of the United States, is an appointed official with a 15-year term that gives him complete political security. His staff in the General Accounting Office provides the fullest range of information on government finances. Last month, Walker went to the National Press Club to raise a public alarm where he hoped it would be heard. "Our projected budget deficits," he said, "are not manageable without significant changes in status quo programs, policies, processes and operations."

Last week three organizations that had not previously collaborated joined at the press club to spell out in specific terms what David Walker meant. The Committee for Economic Development, a group of business and education leaders; the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning research and advocacy group; and the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan organization focused on sound fiscal policy, issued their first joint statement on fiscal policy. They called the current budgetary situation "the most fiscally irresponsible" in American history.

Staff members of the three groups said that a realistic picture of the next decade shows it is likely that annual deficits will rise from current levels of $400 billion to more than $600 billion and total $5 trillion between 2004 and 2013 -- even assuming a quick return to healthy economic growth and lower unemployment.

Those numbers are incomprehensible. But a better sense of their meaning comes when the groups say that if current policies remain, balancing the budget by 2013 will require raising individual and corporate income taxes by 27 percent, cutting Social Security by 60 percent, cutting defense by 73 percent or cutting all programs -- except defense, homeland security, Social Security and Medicare -- by 40 percent.
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