Robert Samuelson January 30, 2014

“For several years now, this town has been consumed by a rancorousargument over the proper size of the federal government. It’s animportant debate.”

— President Obama’s 2014 State of the Union

Well, there’s a presidential whopper. Obama is right that the role of the federal government deserves an important debate, but he is wrong when he says that we’vehad that debate. Just the opposite: The White House and Congress havespent the past five years evading the debate. They’ve argued overfederal budget deficits without addressing the underlying issues of what the government should do, what programs are unneeded, whether somebeneficiaries are undeserving, and how to raise taxes to cover theinevitable gap between what the government spends and its existingrevenues.

The avoidance is entirely bipartisan. CongressionalRepublicans have been just as allergic to genuine debate as the WhiteHouse and its Democratic congressional allies. There is no secret as towhy. The math of budget balancing is politically toxic. Even over aperiod as long as a decade, budget balancing would require bothunpopular spending cuts and unpopular tax increases.

Republicanscan’t cut their way to a balanced budget through lower spending.Eliminating many programs that are arguably marginal — Amtrak, subsidies for public broadcasting and the like — would not produce enough savings to balance the budget. The reason: Spending on Social Security,Medicare and other health programs will increase 21 percent, as a shareof the economy, by 2023, according to Congressional Budget Office projections. This mostly reflects a flood tide of retiring baby boomers. But even plausible benefit trims for affluent retirees would still leave deficits. There would still be a need for tax increases.

Similarly, Democrats can’t plausibly tax their way to a balanced budget — at least with taxes only on the rich. By 2023, existing budget plans alreadycall for spending cuts approaching 40 percent in defense and non-defense “discretionary” programs (everything from Head Start to environmentalregulation). Despite these cuts — also as a share of the economy — theCongressional Budget Office projects that balancing the budget in 2023would require about a 25 percent tax increase from the average 1973-2012 tax level. Restoring some defense and domestic cuts would boost theneeded tax increase. Expanding Social Security benefits (as someliberals propose) would do the same.

Balancing the budget is hardpolitical work because it requires both parties to retreat fromentrenched political positions. Republicans would have to concede theneed for significant tax increases, Democrats for significant spendingcuts, including to Social Security and Medicare. What we desperatelyneed — and haven’t gotten — is a generational reappraisal ofgovernment’s role.

Instead, the White House and congressionalleaders have embraced various subterfuges. The goal is not to balancethe budget but to keep government debt at “sustainable” levels — anintellectually mushy concept that’s almost impossible to explain tonon-experts. Rather than make explicit choices among deserving andundeserving programs and beneficiaries, Congress adopts across-the-board cuts (a.k.a., the “sequester”) that lump many programs together.

What results is an exercise in public confusion. The idea is to give theimpression that a great deal is happening, though hardly anyone(outside, again, budget “experts”) can say just what or to whom. Basicquestions are not being asked or answered. The proof is the farm billnow moving toward congressional approval. We no longer need to payfarmers billions annually to raise corn, wheat and other commoditiesthat they would raise anyway, but that’s what we’re doing. We’re doingit because farmers expect subsidies and congressional committees derivetheir power from providing them.

The evasion of debate fostersmediocre government. The sequester’s automatic spending cuts, even asmodified last year, are slowly gutting the military and importantdomestic programs. Meanwhile, putting most retiree programs off-limitsundesirably protects many affluent retirees. We should debate thesechoices openly. In practice, the debate has been a cover-up.