Tuesday, April 12, 2011

A Pyrrhic victory over a looming war


The recent battle, impasse, and last-minute compromise over the federal budget illustrates the continued hyper-partisanship occurring on Capitol Hill.  

The same old political wrangling between Republicans and Democrats was on display that asked the question of what to cut in a midst of a government shutdown.

While the American electorate continues to stand along the sidelines frustrated at Congress and over the political process, it can blame itself for causing the problem since it voted in a divided Congress during last year’s midterm elections.  Whether or not this is what was expected is really a moot point since this is the very nature of divided government: more conflict and not less of it as the political parties attempt to exert power over the other.

Inevitably, compromise occurs, albeit last minute. The Republicans and the president finally compromised cutting $38 billion in spending from the federal budget.  While this may seem significant at first, in reality, it’s not.  If one were to take that amount and compare it with just the federal budget’s discretionary spending, it only amounts to 1%. That’s a pittance if we compare it with the entire federal budget that accounts over $4 trillion.   

While Speaker Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell tout this as a major victory for Republicans, it really was a pyrrhic victory.

The real battle begins as the president and Congress considers how to tackle the long term problems of ballooning structural deficits that continue to increase our national debt.  How do we curb the cost of entitlements - our unfunded promises and liabilities - like Social Security and Medicare?  Compound that with our national debt that has soared to $14.3 trillion (approximately $70,000 per person) and we have a perfect storm that is forcing Congress to face the difficult, yet inevitable task of raising the debt ceiling so the country does not default on its loans.

While the reality of the debt is grim, politically, the Republicans and Tea Party freshmen have no choice but to go along with the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling since the repercussions of the U.S. defaulting on its loans would mean another catastrophic, debilitating economic crisis at home and abroad.  

The battle to balance this year’s budget may have just ended, but the war to tackle the national debt has just begun.