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The Wall Street Journal | Editorial | October 13, 2005
Cuts That Heal
By Tom Vilsack
Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal.
In just five years, the president and his party have turned the largest budget surpluses in our history into the largest deficits. They've already added $1.2 trillion to our national debt with unwise tax cuts and runaway spending. And if their policies are not reversed, they could saddle us with $10 trillion of debt before George W. Bush leaves offices. Despite the "deficits don't matter" psychology of today's GOP, this debt undermines our fragile economic strength and puts us in ever-deeper hock to China and other countries who help finance all the red ink.
With the cost of the Iraq war exploding, along with the unanticipated costs of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it's critical that we change course before it's too late. Here are ways to do that through spending cuts that would generate $113 billion in savings over five years, without reducing vital public services and investments:
Declare war on pork. Two immediate steps would generate about $42 billion in savings. The first is to demand a moratorium on pork-barrel spending in the 13 appropriations bills for the next fiscal year still pending in Congress ("Pork" is spending targeted to specific states and districts that circumvents the normal budget process, and that was not requested by the agency through which the money flows). The second is to cancel the vast array of congressional "earmarks" (special projects requested by a particular member of Congress) contained in the recently enacted highway bill, such as the $231 million "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska.
End Corporate Welfare. Cutting corporate subsidies could provide another rich vein of savings. While $60 billion of such subsidies are in the budget, a few relatively easy targets stand out, such as the $2 billion provided to large corporate beneficiaries of the Department of Commerce's overseas trade promotion programs. They should pay for this service if they want it.
Cut Oil and Gas Subsidies. The energy bill provides an assortment of government subsidies (e.g., $750 million over a 5-year period -- with the option to double the amount -- for research into deep-water oil and gas drilling likely to be conducted by the Texas Energy Center in Tom DeLay's hometown of Sugar Land) to an oil industry that is currently banking record profits at a rate of $7 billion a month. More than $23 billion over five years could be saved by simply asking these industries to pay their own way.
Trim Government Waste. Basic "good government" efficiencies such as cutting the number of consultants and contractors, reducing political appointments to public jobs and freezing federal travel costs could save more than $7 billion over five years.
All these savings are on the spending side of the budget, and even if you quibble with this or that project or provision, it's clear that -- despite Tom DeLay's declaration to the contrary -- there's fat aplenty to go before considering cuts in the social safety net, scientific research or infrastructure investments.
On the revenue side of the budget, we continue to believe the Bush tax cuts targeted to the wealthiest are economically nonsensical and fiscally and morally ruinous. If it were up to us, we'd cancel all the cuts other than those benefiting low-to-moderate-income citizens, restoring the top tax rates to those of the Clinton era and saving $315 billion over 10 years. At a minimum, we should cancel two specific tax cuts taking effect on Jan. 1, eliminating the phase-out of exemptions and deductions for high earners that benefit no one else. That would save $9 billion over five years; over 15 years, it would save $145 billion, a nice hedge against future Katrinas and perhaps future wars.
All progressives and true conservatives should be able to agree on such an agenda. There's a war on. A region of the country has been devastated. Our economic leadership of the world is in peril. The bills will have to be paid. If we are truly the United States of America, we need to pull together and begin meeting our collective obligations -- now.
Mr. Vilsack, governor of Iowa, is chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council.
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