My letter to my members of Congress, 3/6/11

I’ve written recently concerning the federal budget. I’m writing concerning the inevitable vote on the debt ceiling. I encourage you to vote against raising the debt ceiling unless Congress can agree to implement many of the recommendations of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

I can appreciate that people can support and oppose recommendations of the commission. I think the tradeoff there is the bipartisan nature of the commission underscores an important shift that is needed in the current political culture of our country. Additionally, I see it as the only serious, plausible plan to improve the federal government’s balance sheet.

I’ve been concerned about the federal debt ever since it grew to the hundreds of billions in the early 2000’s. The product of inaction by the Congress and president during that time has forced us to make much more difficult decisions now. At the time I thought incremental, meaningful policy changes would be a good means to fix the deficit, but that never materialized. We can’t change those policy decisions, but the longer we wait to make a fix, the harder it will be, and the more our finances will be impacted. 

Of all the reading I’ve done over the last ten years concerning the deficit and debt, not one serious article has suggested we won’t have to significantly raise taxes and cut spending once we become debt intolerant (default). I would rather take steps now to have a long-term fix to the nation’s finances than to force the federal government to default on its debt, and implement massive tax increases and spending cuts.

While military spending, Medicare and Social Security need to be changed to accomplish serious deficit and debt reduction, there are other areas of the federal government that need to be changed to realize savings. There are undoubtedly intangible costs associated with the overlapping programs and regulatory laws associated with the USDA, FDA, EPA, Department of Education, ATF, ICE, DoD, etc. I don’t see this is as being as high of a priority as the debt.

The US has a phenomenal history of paying its bills, which is reflected in our economy, our standard of living, our debt tolerance, and our limitless access to foreign capital.