Congress cuts taxes again, shifts the cost to another day

There was a day when at least some members of Congress would attempt to debate where the money was going to come from to make up for revenue lost to tax cuts. But that day is certainly not six weeks before a national election.
Last Thursday the Senate passed and sent to President Bush by a vote of 97-3 a bill to extend $146 billion in tax cuts spread over five years. The seeming rationale is that these aren't really cuts, they are the extension of cuts. Regardless, the effect is the same: another $146 billion added to a growing budget deficit and national debt.
That's another $146 billion that will go into our pockets today -- and out of the pockets of our children and grandchildren in years to come.
Lack of resolve
Congress has shown no willingness to raise taxes, cut old spending or even to keep new spending in tow. The administration and Congress continue to tell the American people that they can have it all. The nation can pursue wars and nation-building abroad, fight terrorism at home, support social programs and cut taxes. The result is a state of fiscal chaos, and the economy will pay, families will pay, the future will pay. The debt is mounting and must be addressed, especially considering the deficit spending that will likely be necessary to maintain Social Security and Medicare as baby boomers start retiring.
The Republicans, by letting this happen, have abandoned principles to which they long clung. The Democrats, no less enthusiastic about spending than they traditionally been, have been aiders and abettors. This time, the proximity of the election frightened them into keeping their mouths shut. No presidential or congressional candidate dared think they could make a cogent argument to voters about the need to get back to the job of balancing the budget when their opponents were running 30-second adds accusing them of raising taxes on the middle class.
From surpluses to deficits
President Bush took office at a time of budget surpluses, a time when the talk was of reducing, not adding to the national debt. Arguing that it was only right that government give the surplus back to the people, he pushed through a $1.6 trillion tax cut over 10 years.
But even that figure was a fiction, because Congress rigged the bill to have its most popular tax breaks expire this year -- limiting the ostensible cost. The fiction was that if trickle-down economics didn't work and if the tax cuts had the effect of putting the budget out of balance, well, Congress would let the cuts expire. They knew then what we all know now: no tax cut was going to be allowed to expire in the middle of an election cycle.
Congress avoided having to even talk about how it was going to pay for these cuts through a cowardly maneuver. Hearings, committee markups, floor debate, amendments and other such trappings of a democracy were avoided by tacking the cuts onto a tax bill that was supposed to help the working poor. That bill had been languishing in conference for months.
It was not democracy's finest hour.
The three senators who can still hold their heads high are Democrat Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, who is retiring, and Republicans Olympia Snowe of Maine and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who have long demonstrated an independent streak that can be found in at least some New England politicians.