Who Deserves the Blame?

By STANLEY W. CLOUD WASHINGTON

Among the members of Congress raising the greatest ruckus as Washington descended into budgetary chaos were those most responsible for creating the mess in the first place. There were Reaganite conservatives like Newt Gingrich of Georgia for whom vote-winning formulas -- including the infamous "Read my lips, no new taxes" -- are more important than the national interest. There were Democratic liberals like Henry Waxman of California, whose vision of the government as a cash cow for special interests helped spawn taxpayer revolts and voodoo economics. And there were the special-interest lobbyists whose phone-bank politics stampeded Congress into yet another crazed dash to the precipice.

But Congress is not solely -- or even primarily -- to blame. For a decade the Reagan and Bush administrations have been submitting fraudulent, free- lunch budgets that promised huge tax cuts, a social "safety net," a "kinder, gentler" nation, improved education, a war on drugs, the greatest military buildup in peacetime history and -- most fraudulent of all -- a balanced budget. Bush's OMB director, Richard Darman, who played a crucial role in negotiating the budget compromise that was at the center of last week's maelstrom, was himself guilty of preparing a budget that was a monument to Reaganite wishful thinking. Bush's nationally televised paean to the homely virtues of a balanced checkbook might have carried a lot more weight in both the country and in Congress had he not won office two years ago with a promise to reduce the deficit without raising taxes. It was precisely such claims -- that there is a free lunch after all -- that got the U.S. into its fiscal mess.

Some analysts think they have detected a bipartisan "throw the bums out" mood building among the electorate this year. If so, it is a mood to be encouraged. Elections for the House and a third of the Senate will be held in less than a month, and the voters, having witnessed the spectacle in $ Washington, could do worse than simply elect challengers across the board. They could, as a matter of fact, do a lot worse; they could return all the incumbents for another term of madness. And if, two years hence, the voters are no longer willing to tolerate presidential candidates who run for office with the kind of flag-draped, meanspirited and economically illiterate campaign that propelled Bush to the White House in 1988, so much the better.

For it is axiomatic that in the end the American people must accept responsibility for what is happening inside the beltway. Too many voters have allowed themselves to be seduced by the notion that they can have their goodies from government with no increase in price. A mighty military, Social Security, Medicare, farm subsidies, poverty programs, housing, highways, bridges, clean air, clean water, veterans' benefits -- the whole great panoply of federal involvement in American life -- must, like everything else, be paid for. Today, it is not being paid for. The federal deficit, now nearly $300 billion if various "off-budget" items like the S&L bailout are counted, is testimony to Americans' failure to meet their obligations. So is the stark fact that every citizen's share of the national debt has more than tripled in the past 11 years. A debt of such enormity simply cannot be paid off without sacrifice. Paying it off will mean higher taxes and reduced spending over many years. Anyone who thinks -- or promises -- otherwise is either a dupe or a snake-oil salesman.

Just how bad have things become? Liberals hoping that the deficit might be erased by cutting defense should be aware that eliminating the entire $289 billion defense allocation would not balance the budget. Conservatives who want to focus on slashing domestic programs should understand that such discretionary spending now represents about $183 billion, less than two-thirds of the deficit. Thus, the budget-balancing burden must be shared. So must the tax burden. President Bush, his aides and the congressional leaders who worked out the budget compromise deserve full credit for facing that fact.

There are certainly fairer ways to spread around the cost than those in the budget compromise. The emphasis on raising regressive excise taxes, instead of the more progressive income tax, means that the middle class will, as usual, carry a disproportionate burden. The increases are not huge -- ten cents on gasoline for two years, eight cents on a pack of cigarettes within three years for example -- but, with the economy heading into a recession, they will certainly be felt by those whose incomes are already being pinched. Similarly, the plan's proposed Medicare cuts will push some of the elderly poor into state-run Medicaid programs, even as many states see their revenues shrink. Indeed, among the plan's critics are Governors who fear that higher excise taxes will cut further into states' incomes, with estimated losses in the larger states running to hundreds of millions of dollars. Some of these inequities could be fine-tuned out of the plan later, but the fact remains that, after weeks of heated negotiations, the bipartisan summiteers who put the deal together were unable to find another approach that was politically feasible. The onus is on those who criticize their work to show exactly how they would do a better job of reducing the deficit without resorting to the phony figures and rosy forecasts they're accustomed to using.

One year ago this month, in the midst of a similar budget crisis, TIME's cover, featuring a portrait of George Washington with a large tear running down his cheek, asked the question "Is Government Dead?" The answer was: Very nearly. Twelve months later, if a long-term deficit-reduction package is not put into effect, the answer may be yes.

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Since 1980 the amount of the national debt owed by every American man, woman and child has more than tripled.