Democratic Party Ninth District
David Robinson
The Federal government not required to have balanced budgets and may run a deficit when circumstances call for it just as our families go into debt for a house, a car, college for the kids, or treatment of serious illness. Federal deficits are OK if they're used the same way our families use debt, that is, as a way to buy something that will have long-term benefits and pay for it over that long term.

The Federal budget funds the priorities of whoever has the most influence on Congress and the White House. When political power began to shift, in the 2006 election, neglected needs were put back on the public agenda, and spending must be shifted to these health care, a professional intelligence corps, tax inequities, energy security, consumer protection, quality of life of soldiers and their families. Meanwhile, spending on oncefavored priorities must be scaled back as quickly as possible (Iraq, high-income tax cuts, privatization of government and natural resources, expensive but ineffective military hardware systems to the neglect of adequate numbers and condition of personnel). As progress is made toward the new priorities, budgets must move toward more years of surplus, to pay off accumulated debt and build reserves for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. (The last budgets with surpluses were the last four Clinton budgets.)

The Bush administration borrowed to give tax cuts to the highest-income households while at the same time borrowing to fund the occupation of Iraq. (Afghanistan operations on the home ground of al- Qaeda -- are budgeted for only one-sixth of what Iraq costs.) The tax cuts are part of the ongoing Republican effort to reduce or eliminate programs that help or protect individuals (Medicare, SCHIP, food and drug inspections, workplace safety, disaster assistance, etc.) by cutting tax revenues; while shifting remaining spending to business subsidies (for example, Medicare Advantage plans from insurance companies are subsidized to compete with regular Medicare) and privatizing to add high contractor profits to the cost of public services (Halliburton and Blackwater are current examples; the privatized Medicare prescription drug program is another).

The National Debt has increased by an incredible 56 percent under President Bush. Each year of irresponsible deficits adds to a Debt that could burden us in the coming decades and continue to burden our children. We must instead change priorities to make sure that the world our children inherit from us is at least as prosperous and secure for them as the one we enjoy, so that the costs to them of paying down that debt are offset by the benefits that debt purchased. In the next few years, deficits may sometimes be necessary to meet neglected but critical needs. Long-term, it will take sweeping changes to both increase revenues and reduce spending while, most importantly, dealing with the money-draining inefficiencies of the health care system to lift us out of the deep financial hole dug by the Bush administration and the former Republican-dominated Congress.

David Robinson is a retired urban planner, formerly the Planning Director in towns in the Memphis and Kansas City urban areas and for Gainesville/Hall County and Newnan in Georgia. He is active in the Democratic Party in Pickens County.