Pay attention, pay down the debt

Editorial
The Times of Trenton (New Jersey)
December 12, 2007

Beware of tuning in to one of the Web sites where our national debt is tallied. 

The velocity of the accelerating figures is sure to make you dizzy.

That's just the physical fact of watching the racing red numbers adding up to more than $1 million a minute.

It will take more than a minute, or 10, to comprehend this fact: The U.S. government's debt is approaching $10,000,000,000,000 - or about $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. Realizing that you and your family owe that much (and more every day) will really send you reeling.

And if future promises of Medicare and Social Security are kept, reckon the total amount at $50 trillion. And now, the vertigo is probably setting in.

The numbers are incredible, piling up so fast and furiously, that it seems impossible to halt, let alone reduce, that enormous tab.

Yet the solution is simplicity itself. In fact, there are three simple options available:

Increase taxes.

Cut spending.

Leave the ticking time bomb to future generations.

"The basic facts are a matter of arithmetic, not ideology," says Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan group that advocates eliminating federal deficits.

And while the solutions are simple, their implementation (except for the last one) will be excruciatingly difficult.

There's little dispute that current fiscal policies are unsustainable, says Bixby. "Yet too few of our elected leaders in Washington are willing to acknowledge the seriousness of the long-term fiscal problem and even fewer are willing to put it on the political agenda."

What's more, too few of our would-be leaders are willing to acknowledge the enormity of the problem.

At the recent CNN/YouTube Republican debate, each one of the candidates solemnly promised that, if elected, he would not raise taxes. That's either disingenuous or downright dopey.

Meanwhile, the Democrats twist and turn and tumble their words to avoid any that begin with T, end in X and have an A in the middle. The word is election-year poison.

Yet, anyone who is smart enough to be president should be wise enough to recognize that this monstrous problem will not be cowed by vague threats of "fiscal responsibility."

Real fiscal responsibility would be to take the bull by the horns and, with the input of the American people, figure out the best way to tame it. It will require sacrifice, ingenuity and the will of the entire country. Most of all, it will require an effective and courageous leader.

If we don't soon stand up to this debt, it will crush us.