I’m having increasing trouble identifying with the religious-like fervor many deficit hawks are expressing these days.  I also don’t think the hawks are advancing the debate by their take-no-prisoners attitude that often seems to cross the line to zealotry.

I need to emphasize from the start that I’m talking about real, substantively based deficit hawks rather than those who condemn deficits only when it suits their political purposes. This definitely does not include those who only think the deficit is terrible when the other political party is in the majority. In my mind you don’t qualify as hawk if you talk about the deficit but then fail to support the spending cuts and tax increases that would actually reduce it. In case anyone is wondering, you also aren’t a deficit hawk if all you do is support largely symbolic efforts like process changes.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.

You can’t work on the federal budget as long as I have without being very concern

Save The Economy Without Accumulating Record Debt -- click here for details.  My quick reading is that it is long on the WARD, short on the STE.

It's all deficits all the time in the headlines today.  Some worthwhile reads:

1) Our friends at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget have finally suggested that we ought to have a plan to pay these deficits back, sort of:

The challenge is how to best meet the seemingly contradictory goals of providing the economy with sufficient stimulus, yet doing so in a fiscally responsible manner. The answer is to continue with stimulus policies as necessary, but, in order to regain the country's fiscal credibility, to promptly develop and announce a plan to reduce the deficit and close the long-term fiscal gap. This plan would be implemented as soon as the economy is strong enough to absorb it.

I have returned from some business travel to my familiar rant, this time on NPR's Marketplace.  The teaser:

Bailout supporters took a lot of heat for handing that cash over to Wall Street. But commentator and economist Andrew Samwick argues it's actually Main Street that's usually on the receiving end of government help.

You can follow the link to listen to the commentary. I'd be happy to follow up on any questions raised by the piece.

 

It depends upon whom you ask.  Most business leaders and investors favor Senator McCain's low tax, less government spending, free trade stance, despite McCain's admission to The Wall Street Journal on November 26, 2005 that "I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."  However, if you ask low-income workers, the poor, those without health insurance, and those whose jobs have been outsourced, Senator Obama would be favored, despite his lack of business experience.  The differences are stark and clearly defined.

However, as a "deficit hawk," I have a much more difficult time deciding between the two.  How much, if anything, would they do to lift the terrible $3.9 trillion of additional public debt that President Bush has incurred on behalf of our children?

This morning, The U.S. Budget Watch Project opened to an enthusiastic audience of hardened Washington deficit hawks.  Such a group would not have turned out for a talk on budget process reform or on another hunt for "fraud, waste, and abuse."  We turned out because of the respect commanded by Leon Panetta, Bill Frenzel, Chuck Bowsher, Rudy Penner, Charlie Stenholm, Jim Kolbe, Gene Steuerle, and Bill Hoagland.  They were brought together in this endeavor by Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.  All are highly respected for their yeoman work these many years to curtail Washington's "addiction to debt."

They announced,  "Washington interest groups usually want more for themselves. Today, one organization will start a crusade to get less."  They will educate the voters to the budgetary peril their children will face unless political leaders take responsibility for the fiscal mess we're in.

This morning's Washington Post's lead editorial, "Who'll Cover the Checks," confirms my point of last Tuesday -- all three presidential candidates have proposed far more spending increases and tax cuts than they would pay for and by roughly equal amounts of half a trillion dollars each.  Elections are not won without overpromising.  Next year, some of those promises will be kept, some will be put off until the future, some will fall by the wayside, and some deficit reduction will be added.  One thing we can be sure of -- for the next few years, the deficit will go up.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal jumped on John McCain's economic policy proposals for either causing "the federal deficit to explode" or requiring "unprecedented spending cuts equal to one-third of federal spending on domestic programs." This was based upon estimates which I would vouch for from the Urban/Brookings Tax Policy Center. I haven't found similar analyses of Barack Obama's or Hillary Clinton's economic policy proposals, but I would expect comparable deficit explosions.

Former U.S. Chamber of Commerce Chief Economist Richard Rahn has a "don't worry be happy" piece in today's Washington Times that, at least when it comes to the federal budget and U.S. fiscal policy, is one of the best examples of selective memory I've seen in a long time.

Rahn says that, because the budget deficit fell slightly from 2006 to 2007, the Bush tax cuts have been a huge success. Here's what he's conveniently not saying: