Where are deficit hawks of both parties?

Mounting national debt plus rising interest rates are putting the federal government on a bleak fiscal trajectory, The Wall Street Journal reports.

While discussions about the national debt or even federal budget deficit have virtually disappeared since the election of President Trump, with Republicans disinterested in the sort of fiscal responsibility championed by the tea party and Democrats only interested in mentioning the deficit to knock recent tax cuts, politicians can only ignore the problem for so long.

The Journal recently noted that while interest costs on federal debt hit $263 billion in 2017 — equivalent to 6.6 percent of federal spending and 1.4 percent of gross domestic product — the federal government is on track to double that by 2028.

By that time, the federal government will spend approximately 13 percent of its outlays on debt interest alone.

Put in terms that might more strongly resonate with the public, the Journal notes that the federal government will spend more on debt interest in 2020 than it does on Medicaid by 2020, more than national defense by 2023 and more than all nondefense discretionary categories of spending by 2025.

Things will only be worse than that should interest rates continue to rise or an economic downturn occur in the next decade, which they most certainly will.

At some point, politicians and the American people alike must wake up to this looming reality.

As a practical matter, the greater proportion of the federal budget that must go toward debt interest, the less money will be available for tangible services the public receives now.

Coupled with the reality that the federal government ended the 2018 fiscal year spending $782 billion more than it took in, this sets up future generations of Americans with a massive fiscal headache.

The notion that the federal government can continue to run up trillion-dollar budget deficits for years on end and not suffer any long-term problems obviously doesn’t make any sense.

Unfortunately, Republican control of the House, Senate and White House did nothing to put the nation on a positive long-term fiscal trajectory. For all of the talk just a few years ago of fiscal responsibility and limited government, Republican control of Congress only led to bigger budgets and bigger deficits.

As easy as it might be for Democrats to point the blame at recently enacted tax cuts, the tax cuts only account for a small proportion of the existing deficit. They are estimated to cost the federal government between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion over the course of a decade.

In other words, even if those tax cuts were completely repealed, the federal government would still be deep in the red and still adding to national debt and associated interest costs.

As politically challenging as it is for politicians to display any fiscal restraint, they must do so.

For Republicans, this task should be easy enough, given how much rhetoric they throw around about limited government. For Democrats, this will likely be more of a challenge given the preference of the party’s emboldened progressives for more spending, more programs and more government.

At some point, adult conversations will need to be had about the basic arithmetic at play and the need for real leadership.

— Southern California News Group,

Digital First Media