Editorial: What happened to the deficit debate?

Star Tribune

So much for the end of deficit denial.

A month ago, President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform ignited a national debate with its stark prescription for runaway red ink.

The panel's brutally honest assessment of the federal budget inspired politicians from both parties as well as the nation's leading think tanks to come forward with their own plans.

Virtually all recommended the same fiscal tough love: a one-two punch of tax increases and meaningful spending cuts sparing no program no matter how politically untouchable it is.

A nation with a maxed-out Visa card finally seemed ready to enter budget rehab -- or at least think about it.

As 2011 kicks off, it's as if the long-overdue financial intervention never occurred.

And there's little reason to be hopeful about the incoming Congress.

The new House Republican leadership doesn't appear to have taken the various deficit plans seriously. Instead of putting "everything on the table," as the deficit commission called for, incoming Republican leaders have done just the opposite by vowing not to touch hugely expensive programs such as Medicare and defense.

Instead, their main remedy is a budgetary Band-Aid: $100 billion in cuts to nondefense discretionary spending.

While the GOP deserves credit for taking a spending cut first step, this is far from a game-changer. Politicians could eliminate this whole spending category -- funding for national parks, the Coast Guard, veterans health programs, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- and the nation would still be in the red.

It's the equivalent of trying to balance a family budget by cutting back on cable TV when it's really oversized car and mortgage payments that are the problem.

They must be addressed in any budget-balancing efforts -- a point laudably hammered home by the various budget plans released late last year. Pretending otherwise is a disservice to those who pay for the programs, those who depend on the programs and those who will need them in the future -- just about everyone, in other words.

Neither political party has endorsed one of the recently released deficit reduction plans, nor have Republicans or Democrats offered up their own comprehensive proposals.

Voters ought to keep that in mind as the debate over raising the nation's debt ceiling heats up. That the country is in this situation is disturbing.

Those who are sincerely concerned about this will endorse or offer up a long-term plan encompassing the big programs. Those saying that it can be accomplished through painless "efficiencies" need to be called out.

They are deficit peacocks, not deficit hawks.

A poll dealing with Medicare made that point in late December. The Associated Press-GfK poll found that the majority of graying baby boomers approve of raising Medicare's eligibility age if it helps preserve the program's benefits.

Initially, this same group was reluctant to make that switch, but was more accepting after being given the facts about Medicare's precarious finances. The nation is ready for an adult conversation.