"So what else is new? Isn't that how Washington has always operated?"
No.
Sure, almost every era in American history has had its share of corruption and scandal. But for the most part, when it came to the central pivot of our government — its budget — the government's accountants were serious scorekeepers that did everything in their power to avoid hanky-panky.
The whole notion of "off-budget" accounting and major expenditures left hanging outside of the "official" budget process was both unknown and unimaginable.
Moreover, throughout American history, most budgets were balanced or at least very close to balanced. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) puts it this way:
"... except for periods of war (when spending for defense increased sharply), depressions or other economic downturns (when receipts fell precipitously), the Federal budget was generally in surplus throughout most of the Nation's first 200 years."
The facts:
1. For our first 60 years as a Nation (through 1849), cumulative budget surpluses and deficits yielded a net surplus of $70 million ...
2. Between 1901 and 1916, the budget hovered very close to balance every year.
3. The budget was also in surplus throughout the 1920s.
However, the OMB recounts that this historic pattern was broken by the Great Depression and World War II, when there occurred "a long, unbroken string of deficits that were historically unprecedented in magnitude."
Still, those debts could be at least partially justified by the unusual circumstances.
No similar justification is possible, however, for the 1980s. That's when the historic pattern of running large deficits only in times of war or economic downturns was broken.
According to the OMB,
"In 1982, partly in response to a recession, large tax cuts were enacted. However, these were accompanied by substantial increases in defense spending. Although reductions were made to nondefense spending, they were not sufficient to offset the impact on the deficit. As a result, deficits averaging $207 billion were incurred between 1983 and 1992."
The main reason: Huge, structural problems emerging in the budget deficit — especially in non-discretionary spending and the rising cost of defense.
Extra revenues and reduced social costs during the booming 1990s helped cover up those problems. But it didn't help fix them. Instead, our leaders merely perpetuated the age-old pattern of conveniently leaving the thornier issues to future generations to deal with.
Now, WE are that future generation....
--- Martin Weiss |
