Budget Compromise Heralded, at the Expense of the Future

In a rare moment of compromise, both parties agreed to a budget resolution and an increase in the debt ceiling that will sustain the federal government through the coming presidential election. The leadership took a victory lap, and we are supposed to rejoice in a long-awaited compromise. While our mission is to encourage compromise, is this the outcome we want—a compromise that compromises the future? Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

As we discuss in our Fiscal Policy Research, the growing level of national debt not only runs the risk of a future insolvency, but it shifts an unfair financial burden to our children. At a time when things like climate change and infrastructure will require massive investments, they will not have the capacity to do so. In this context, the only thing that the Congress can agree on is to exacerbate this problem by adding more spending that isn’t paid for. If ever there were a Faustian bargain, this is one. Democrats agree to defense spending that they don’t believe in (and as we argue in our Defense Research, we don’t need), Republicans agree to domestic spending that they object to (and about which we cannot actually find any details), and the next generation pays the bill without having a single vote on the matter. The deal increases and cements $1.0 trillion deficits as far as one can see in addition to our existing $22.3 trillion in national debt. 

Would any parent that you know ask their children and grandchildren to cosign their loans in order to live beyond their means? I think not. And how is it that the Republican Party in particular thought the deficits and debt were too high during the Obama administration, but is fine with them now when they are much larger? When the party ends, as it did in Greece, Spain, Italy, and countless other countries, this “compromise” and others like it will be seen as one of the great reckless acts of our time.