Balancing the budget

The budget plan drafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and sent to the House floor by the committee this past week isn’t going anywhere while the Democrats control the Senate and the White House. But at least Ryan is continuing to educate the country on how to write budgets.

Ryan’s plan lacks details in key areas. However, what we want to endorse is his goal, a balanced budget in 10 years — a stark difference from the counterpart plan of the Senate Budget Committee, which fails to project balance in its 10-year look-ahead.

Last year Ryan set no goal of balance; he just aimed at ever-declining deficits and quoted an estimate of the Congressional Budget Office that the budget would balance by 2040 — too far off to take seriously.

History shows that politicians will always spend more than they have if they can. Launching new programs brings in campaign contributions and praise of interest groups that lead politicians to think of themselves as benefactors of humanity, an addictive thought. Party doesn’t matter — a Republican Congress and president launched the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2003 at a time of deficits. Spending always creates constituencies who will fight tooth and nail later for money that should go to paying down debt.

The spenders will object that spending is important to prop up the economy. In the past five years, the federal government has spent $4.5 trillion more than it took in (that’s $1.39 in outgo for every $1 in income) with precious little result in propping up of the economy. Some prominent economists believe that stimulus spending doesn’t really stimulate at all.

A commitment to balance reasonably soon can be an important source of spending restraint. Making it explicit makes it harder to fudge.

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/editorials/2013/03/balancing_the_budget