It’s time for both parties to see debt for what it is — bad

It’s time for both parties to see debt for what it is — bad

Debt, it seems, is politically relative.

We can remember the eight years of the Bush administration during which the national debt doubled and the Republican mantra was that deficits don’t matter. Then, the important thing was enacting and perpetuating tax cuts.

Suddenly, Republicans are becoming deficit hawks, and its Democrats who are saying that it is more important to spend money on job creation than to avoid debt. It’s the economy, you know.

A pox on both their houses. While the tax cuts were lovely (at least for some) and it is important to tackle a 10 percent unemployment rate, Washington’s utter lack of fiscal discipline for most of the last 25 years has put the nation in a hole to the tune of $12 trillion and counting.

Paying the piper

There are consequences to such borrowing. It weakens the dollar. Much of the debt is now held by foreign nations, which has the potential of affecting U.S. trade policy and diplomacy. And, the debt doesn’t come cheap.

In 2008, the cost of interest on the national debt was $458 billion. That’s what the entire federal budget was back in 1978. Even adjusting for inflation, today’s interest payments would cover about half the total federal budget of just 30 years ago.

There is a logical limit to how much the federal government should barrow, but too often politics and logic conflict. So Congress sets a hard limit to how much borrowing it can do. The problem is, every time the limit is approached, Congress doesn’t cut spending, it raises the limit.

The debt ceiling, which stood at $5.9 trillion a decade ago, was increased six times during the George W. Bush administration, the last time being in July 2008, when it was hiked to $11 trillion.

It was raised again in February, to $12 trillion, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and now faces its second increase of President Barack Obama’s administration. Democrats in Congress are suggesting adding almost $2 trillion more to the ceiling.

It is time to cut through the partisanship and take action to rein in the debt.

The ceiling has to be increased this time, as it has in the past, because a nation’s economy is like a battleship, it can’t be turned on a dime. But it must be turned as quickly as possible.

Voice in the wilderness

One of a small number of men in Washington who has consistently argued against habitual deficits and a growing debt — regardless of the party holding the White House — has been Ohio Republican George Voinovich.

Finally, it appears, Sen. Voinovich’s calls over the years for a bipartisan legislative response is getting the attention it deserves.

The Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action Act of 2009 unveiled last week is close cousin to Voinovich’s Securing America’s Future Economy Commission Act. He has introduced his SAFE Act in each Congress since 2006.

It would create a bipartisan commission to examine tax and entitlement systems and make recommendations to Congress on how to restore fiscal sanity to the budget process before it is too late.

Both parties should be not only embarrassed but alarmed that the debt ceiling is on the verge of being increased from $12 trillion to $14 trillion. And both parties should commit themselves to a course of action that reverses a trend toward a growing debt that presents a real danger to the nation’s wellbeing.

Neither party is going to be eager to take the kind of action that will be necessary, which is why a bipartisan approach, mandated by Congress, is necessary.

Passing the buck to future generations is no longer an option.