To paraphrase Mark Twain, “Everyone talks about our terrible national debt, but no one does anything about it.”
Our ship of state is heading straight toward a deadly fiscal iceberg. We’ve known that for many years. But we’re incapable of changing course, as most recently evidenced by a spending orgy some called a “One Big Beautiful Bill.” The OBBB raised the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. The debt-to-GDP ratio will soon approach a devastating 130 percent.
The OBBB followed a different spending orgy inflicted on us by the previous administration, which, under the guise of COVID relief, directed countless billions of dollars towards all too many dubious projects and political causes. Thus, our terrible inflation. (See Economics 101.)
Octogenarian presidents don’t dwell on the long-term consequences of short-term spending policies. They’ll be gone when our ship hits the iceberg.
One suggested remedy involves an Article V Convention of the States to create constitutional spending restraints. While there is much support for that approach, opponents successfully stoke fears of “runaway conventions” that sufficiently spook the electorate to make such a solution unlikely. We saw that dynamic manifest itself in the New Hampshire legislature earlier this year.
The seemingly insoluble challenge is that congresspeople are elected to spend and “bring home the bacon.” It is what it is. Perks, projects, grants, and earmarks. You won’t see incumbents or challengers putting out press releases about proposals to raise taxes or rein in programs to address the deficit.
It’s a deadly systemic flaw in American politics. Is there any hope?
Yes. We could create a CCCS—a Commission to Cut Congressional Spending—that could mitigate the current seemingly insoluble congressional spending challenge. There’s a very promising precedent: BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure Commission).
In the years following the Vietnam War, our Department of Defense (DoD) sought to close numerous unneeded military bases. But DoD couldn’t close a single base due to Congress.
In his best-selling book “It Doesn’t Take a Hero,” the late General H. Norman Schwarzkopf well-described the problem. DoD identified the base that it least needed, out of hundreds of superfluous installations—Alabama’s Fort McClellan. Closing that base would establish a model process to be followed elsewhere.
“We prepared a superb briefing, crystal clear in its evidence and irrefutable in its logic as to why Fort McClellan had to close,” recalled Schwarzkopf.
As a courtesy to Alabama’s Sen. John Sparkman, Schwarzkopf arranged a Capitol Hill presentation for the powerful Democrat concerning the closure. Sparkman congratulated Schwarzkopf on a great presentation before blasting the briefing team.
“Ya’ll go back and tell your bosses at the Pentagon that as long as I am a senator from the great state of Alabama, you ain’t nevuh gonna close Fort McClellan!” said Sparkman before storming out of the room.
Eventually, BRAC was created to minimize congressional meddling. It worked! Periodic assessments led to the closure of over 350 installations, saving many billions of dollars.
Congresspeople had to vote on a full BRAC package. All or none. The greater good subsequently prevailed. N.H.’s Pease Air Force Base was a BRAC casualty over the protests of our congressional delegation.
C’est la guerre.
So, how would a comparable CCCS work?
Appoint Barack Obama and George W. Bush as CCCS co-chairs with the assumption that those two statesmen would put the greater good ahead of partisan interests, as they agree on a commission of respected public figures to recommend needed federal budget policies addressing everything from entitlement reform to the DoD. The commission would include elected officials but also a spectrum of respected scholars, specialists, economists, and others. CCCS would necessarily include members representing a spectrum of ideological and geographic interests. In the fashion of jury selection, each chair could challenge or strike a certain number of potential members deemed incapable of serving in good faith. Congress would need to approve the commission, its mission, its membership, and its process. CCCS would have a year to evaluate proposals and approaches and recommend policies that would redirect our ship of state away from the deadly iceberg.
Ultimately, as with BRAC, Congress would have to vote to accept or reject the total CCCS package of recommendations. One up or down vote. There would be plenty of public scrutiny and debate. Congresspeople would be accountable, and members would have to spell out their positions, especially to younger citizens whose futures especially depend on budget reform.
BRAC worked. CCCS could work. The next Congress may well consist of a Democratic House and a Republican Senate, which might be to the advantage of a CCCS. Granite State voters should query current and prospective congresspeople if they’d consider a CCCS process, and if not, why not? Do any of them have serious, credible spending positions?
Mark Twain also claimed that “If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.” Hopefully, that cynical view can be disproved, as we draw ever closer to that deadly fiscal iceberg.
