Jumping from crisis to crisis is not the way to run a nation

The kindest interpretation of what went on in Washington, D.C., last week would be that Republicans and Democrats have finally shown an ability to reach a compromise when push comes to shove.

A less kind — and more accurate — reading would be that when it comes to the big issues, neither party is willing to start governing unless there is a crisis staring them in the face.

The 11th hour agreement on a belated 2011 spending deal makes Congress look like an irresponsible high school senior who has put off working for much of the academic year and must now pull all-night cramming sessions in the hope of getting the passing grades he needs for a diploma.

It’s not as if he didn’t know when he was a freshman that this day would come; he just preferred to get by with as little effort as possible most of the time.

Democrats and Republicans alike share blame for the sorry state of the nation’s financial well-being because both have overseen decades of progressively egregious deficit spending. The nation’s annual deficits and cumulative national debt have reached their most dramatic points in the three years since the 2008 economic collapse, but both have hit levels in the last 30 years that should have set off alarms.

As recently as December, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform issued a report that was titled a “Moment of Truth.” It turned out to be a moment that neither Democrats nor Republicans wanted to live through. The report noted that since the last time the federal budget had been balanced in 2001, the federal debt as a percent of Gross Domestic Product had risen from 33 percent of GDP to 62 percent in 2010. It stands at $14 trillion now and is on track to exceed 100 percent of GDP — a figure last seen in the World War II era — in the next year or two. The rising percentage reflects not only years of irresponsible spending, but questionable revenue (tax) policy and minimal growth in the GDP.

Growth is the key

The nation didn’t cut or tax its way from those World War II levels of debt vs. GDP as much as it grew its way out through two largely booming decades. It was a time when the United States was an exporting powerhouse, supplying the rest of the world with the products and machinery needed to rebuild. For more than a quarter century now, the United States has been a net importer rather than exporter. There is no period of dramatic growth on the horizon that would help bring our debt back in balance with our production.

We’re glad that the Democratic Senate and White House and Republican House were able to avoid a shutdown over the weekend. Despite popular rhetoric about “nonessential” government operations, both sides recognized that it was essential to a recovering economy to avoid the trauma and wastefulness of a shutdown.

But we can only hope that our representatives in Washington are ready to buckle down with a new understanding that neither side has all the answers and that at times such as these everyone has to carry some of the burden.

The fiscal responsibility commission chaired by former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican and former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, a Democrat, called for service cuts that were unpalatable to Democrats and tax increases that were rejected by Republicans.

But just because what they were preaching wasn’t popular doesn’t mean it was wrong. Their basic formula is sound and it is one that should be receiving a second and more serious look in Washington beginning today.