(Washington, DC) – After shaking hands over a flaweddeal to raise the national debt ceiling, elected officials must avoid shakingdown taxpayers for more of their money and instead start shaking upWashington’s culture of excessive spending and borrowing. That’s the assessmentof the 362,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU), which has already begunefforts to ensure taxpayers get the most out of the debt agreement’s limited potentialas well as push for additional reforms that are necessary to change America’sunsustainable fiscal course. NTU Executive Vice President Pete Sepp offered thefollowing comments shortly after the enactment of the debt-limit compromise:
Yetanother budget deal has been signed into law, amid the usual pronouncementsthat mountains have been moved, cats have been herded, and gallons of midnightoil have been burned to produce the best possible outcome for taxpayers. Thereality is less dramatic. Instead of adopting the House-passed Cut, Cap, andBalance plan – the most comprehensive and effective near-term, intermediate,and long-run solution to runaway deficits and reckless debt – Washington agreedto some further borrowing and some modest spending reductions now, whilecontinuing to put off the most important decisions until later.
Taxpayersdo have cause to be encouraged by parts of this plan. The President and hisallies abandoned punitive tax hikes as an absolute condition for the firstchunk of additional debt authority; instead, a larger amount of program cutswill take effect. Moreover, should the ‘Supercommittee’s’ task of identifying$1.5 trillion in additional deficit reduction in exchange for a seconddebt-chunk come to naught, a solid “sequester” mechanism to enforce spendingcuts – including prudent adjustments to defense – could be triggered. Additionally,the legislation commits Congress to voting on a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA)to the U.S. Constitution.
Unfortunately,taxpayers have more cause to be concerned. As NTU’s Andrew Moylan explained in arecent entry on our blog, the ‘Supercommittee’ will indeed have the latitude torecommend certain tax increases, which could very well have an easier path toenactment than the conventional legislative process might afford. Furthermore,unlike the Cut, Cap, and Balance plan or the modified Budget Control Act thatpassed the House late last week, Congress is not required to send a BBAto the states for ratification before a second bundle of borrowing could beunwrapped.
AlthoughNTU believed the minuses of this agreement outweighed the pluses and thereforeopposed it, leaders must now concentrate on minimizing the potential damage andmaximizing the potential gains for taxpayers. This means insisting that membersof the Supercommittee rule out tax increases in their quest to shave futuredeficits. It means pursuing systemic tax simplification and reform, which willstabilize revenues the right way - by growing the economy. It means acting uponmore aggressive proposals for spending restraint from both sides of the aisle. Itmeans making honest reforms to all entitlement programs now, not more posturingand gimmickery that will lead to worse pain later. It means a true bipartisaneffort for constitutional fiscal discipline, by passing a workable BBA ratherthan going through the motions of a political ‘show vote.’
Inshort, a fiscal impasse has been averted, but a fiscal crisis brought on byWashington’s culture of excessive spending and borrowing has yet to be avoided.Our future still hangs in the balance.
NTU is anonpartisan, nonprofit citizen organization founded in 1969 to work for lowertaxes, smaller government, and economic freedom at all levels. For more on NTU’s work visit www.ntu.org.