With a little creativity, we can easily
balance the budget without cutting Social Security.
Talk
of the so-called "fiscal cliff" has grown from a murmur to a roar
this holiday season. But that doesn't make this cliff any less imaginary than
Santa Claus.
The
White House and Republican lawmakers are furiously negotiating a "grand
bargain" to avert a rash of spending cuts and tax hikes that might scuttle
the recovery. Unfortunately, their deal may include unnecessary and arbitrary
Social Security and Medicare cuts.
Fiscal policy, like foreign policy, isn't everyone's favorite subject. But all Americans need to realize that those vital earned-benefit programs didn't create this huge deficit. Here's what did cause it: Washington cut taxes on the rich while waging lengthy wars of choice and the Great Recession depressed tax revenue when the housing bubble burst.
Raising
the retirement age to balance the budget would be as wrongheaded as invading a
Middle Eastern country run by a brutal leader to root out caches of weapons of
mass destruction that — it turns out — don't even exist. Wait. Doesn't that
sound familiar?
Sure,
those looming cuts could inflict serious damage. But the biggest danger is that
the White House and Congress will rush a budget deal that would rip our already
threadbare safety net and still fail to keep the fragile recovery on track.
We're
not a poor country. We're just suffering from a poverty of imagination and
courage. With too few options on the table, it just looks like some terrible
choices are inevitable.
At
a time when fewer and fewer senior citizens can afford to stop working in their
golden years and pensions are becoming an endangered species, why is Social
Security even on the table? How did it become the centerpiece?
This
"fiscal cliff" hysteria could easily trigger a grand fiscal swindle.
But it doesn't have to — because we're not broke.
My
organization, the Institute for Policy Studies, has identified 20 creative tax
and spending ideas that would balance the budget. This proposal would empower Uncle Sam to continue and
even expand programs that help people in need and rebuild our infrastructure.
Our
list of 20 proposed revenue-raisers and spending cuts isn't exhaustive but it
does demonstrate that there are commonsense ways to put our country on a more
sustainable path.
These
ideas would narrow the federal budget deficit by $881 billion a year, nearly
eliminating it altogether. More than half of this savings would come from
fairly taxing Wall Street, corporations, and the rich. The rest would come from
right-sizing the Pentagon, taxing pollution, ending climate-killing subsidies
for fossil fuels and other forms of dirty energy, and improving our land-use
policies.
Our
proposal would leave plenty of resources for the nation's pressing human and
environmental needs, and stave off those looming across-the-board cuts.
There
are sensible ways to achieve a more sustainable budget without hurting the most
vulnerable among us. But every saved cent shouldn't pay for deficit reduction.
Whether we leap off a cliff or just trip over a curb in 2013, the federal
government should direct some budget savings toward long-neglected priorities.
After
all, tens of millions of us will remain uninsured and under-insured after the
Affordable Care Act's full implementation. The foreclosed-upon need more help,
not less. As everyone whose home got washed away during Superstorm Sandy
learned first-hand, adapting to the extreme weather that's become our new
normal and doing what we can to slow climate change will require major public
investment.
Instead
of freaking out about a theoretical cliff, we need to do something about the
real challenges that could wreck our future.
Emily Schwartz Greco is the managing editor
of OtherWords, a national
non-profit editorial service run by the Institute for Policy Studies. She
edited the new IPS report We're Not Broke: A
commonsense guide to avoiding the fiscal swindle while making the United States
more equitable, green, and secure. IPS-dc.org