By U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud(D-Maine)
Mainers budget their expenses in order to make ends meet. It’s long past time that the federal government does too.
When you talk about budgets and fiscal responsibility, some tend to tune out. It is not the most exciting issue. Balance sheets and budget rules usually don’t make headlines. But if we keep ignoring our country’s fiscal situation, dire headlines are sure to follow.
When Maine families have to spend more on energy costs like fuel and home heating oil, they find savings in other areas so that they do not go into debt. And even when they are forced to borrow, to buy a car or a place to live, they make their payments. They do this because it’s the right thing to do and because of the serious consequences to their future if they do not. Families do what they need to do with their budgets to make things work.
I believe that the federal government needs to follow the example set by so many responsible Americans. If it doesn’t, the fear of mounting debt will no longer be a major concern; it will be a catastrophe for our country.
I applaud President Obama’s commitment to reinstituting statutory “pay-as-you-go” (PAYGO) measures, which are rules that require new mandatory government spending to be matched with budget cuts or savings elsewhere. Just like Maine families, the government would be forced to pay for what it wants to do.
The idea is nothing new. PAYGO helped us reach surpluses when it was the law of the land in the 1990s and the early part of this decade. Unfortunately, PAYGO was repealed in 2002 and our country went from projected $800 billion surpluses for years to come to where we are today – over $11 trillion dollars in debt. It’s not fair to say that our current debt total is entirely a result of PAYGO’s repeal. But it didn’t help either. Part of that huge debt can be attributed to items that were never paid for like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Medicare prescription drug benefit and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
PAYGO is something that I and my fellow Blue Dog Coalition members strongly support. But I am concerned that the President’s proposal contains a number of significant exemptions to PAYGO rules, including the continuation of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts which offer little benefit to hard working middle income families, Medicare payments to physicians and adjustments to the alternative minimum tax, estate tax and gift tax.
I am concerned that the President is shortchanging the potential PAYGO has to help reign in the deficit by creating exemptions from the rules right off the bat for trillions of dollars worth of spending. We need to pay for our policies or we will never get out from under this mountain of debt. If a Maine family spent like the government does they’d be bankrupt.
I support a stricter approach than what the President has put forward. I joined with my fellow Blue Dogs in introducing a bill that not only reinstitutes statutory PAYGO, but also implements multi-year discretionary spending caps. The bill that I support would also close a loophole in the current law which allows almost any spending to be designated as ‘emergency’ spending. This loophole has been used in recent years to add billions of dollars to our overall debt.
The President deserves to be commended for focusing on the need to return our country to fiscal discipline. PAYGO alone won’t get rid of our total debt, but it will help prevent its growth. The bottom line is that we must pay for what we pass in Congress and not exempt trillions in spending from that goal. It is my hope that Congress will have a chance to strengthen the President’s proposal. Combined, spending caps, entitlement reform and statutory PAYGO will help us restore some budget sanity.
