"Both sides will have to give ground," says Virginia Sen. Mark Warner about the federal budget talks. Chalk that up to Warner's pursuit of "radical centrism" — and give him credit for not screaming, as any number of leftist ideologues have, that the Obama administration has conceded too much already, or that Republicans are demanding the moon. (A column by Warner will appear on Sunday's Op/Ed page.)
Warner's centrist approach obscures more than it clarifies. It sounds sensible and fair in the abstract. But as applied to the current situation it makes no sense. It's like resolving a dispute between a bank and a bank robber by letting the robber keep half of what he stole. Everyone has to give up something in a negotiation, right?
What Warner and his more strident colleagues fail to note is this: Since 2008 total federal spending has risen by more than one-fourth, from $2.98 trillion to $3.8 trillion this year. If the federal government simply had held federal spending steady at 2008 levels, then it would have eliminated more than $1.75 trillion in accumulated debt. That comes to about $1.62 billion per day.
By the way, blame for the explosive growth in debt is bipartisan. Fiscal 2009 began on Oct. 1, 2008 — a month before Barack Obama was elected, three months before he took office, and probably six months before he had his sea legs under him. When the president says he inherited a mess, he speaks the truth.
Or half of it, anyway. When you inherit a mess, the responsible thing to do is to try to clean it up. Instead, the current administration has made it worse. First, by accelerating a rush toward the fiscal cliff with massive spending increases. Second, by demagoguing the issue with misleading class-warfare rhetoric. In his press conference last week, for instance, Obama pressed the case for cutting a tax loophole for corporate jets. He mentioned corporate jets six times.
Do corporate big shots need a tax break for elite modes of transportation? Of course not. By all means — tax the loophole. Doing so, however, would raise only $300 million a year. Compare that with the numbers above. If Washington had simply held spending to 2008 levels, it would have saved $300 million in less than five hours.
The simple fact is that when it comes to the federal budget, fiscal conservatives have been "giving ground" for years. In the past decade, inflation-adjusted spending has risen 70 percent for defense, 76 percent for Medicare and Medicaid, and 56 percent for non-defense discretionary categories. Now Warner et al. say that in order to address the debt crisis, fiscal conservatives need to meet the fiscally incontinent halfway. Does that make them metaphorical bank robbers? No. But how about accessories to the crime?
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