The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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October 28, 2009

Our View: A warning not to be ignored

It is perhaps an example of the times in which we live. A report by The Government Accountability Office offers a bleak future for the American economy, and hardly anyone notices.

We are too busy discussing the balloon boy, the White House’s war on Fox News and (to be fair) crucial issues involving Afghanistan and health care. But it would have been nice if, just for a day or two, lawmakers might stop for a moment to discuss the elephant in the room sure to be with us longer than it takes for their terms expire.

A GAO report to Congress on the nation’s long-term fiscal outlook opens with an indictment of a U.S. government that has, it says, “contributed to near-term increases in federal deficits, which reached a record level in fiscal year 2009.” The government, according to the report, “faces even larger fiscal challenges that will persist long after the return of financial stability and economic growth.” The government is on an “unsustainable” fiscal path.

Translated, you and I are on an unsustainable path. Governments only make policy. Policies someday must come due, and eventually we all must pay.

A country that cannot control its spending must take in ever-greater amounts of money to maintain balance while being sure to protect itself as a credit risk.

The GAO report is not reassuring on this point. Extrapolating debt numbers from 2000 to 2040 under the present rate, the report says revenue would need to be increased by 47 percent and noninterest spending trimmed by 33 percent over the next 75 years to hold debt to 2008 levels (40.8 percent of GDP) to maintain a livable balance.

Nobody wants to worry about the future now, of course, while we are so busy digging out of our present troubles. Least of all members of Congress, who think long-term only as far as the next election cycle.

But tomorrow doesn’t worry for itself. A nation ignores the future at its peril.

Someday, this country will need to produce leaders willing to favor long-term planning over short-term gains. How many years will lapse before we begin discussing our long-term future in earnest? Ten years? Twenty? Thirty?

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