As former chairmen of the House Republican and Democratic campaign committees, we understand the pressures of election year politics. Candidates tend to avoid uncomfortable topics, exaggerate differences, and make promises aimed at rewarding voters with new benefits or tax cuts that appear to improve their lives.
But underlying all this is the existential crisis this country faces from its mounting national debt once the dust has cleared from the election campaign.
The Treasury Department recently announced that the U.S. gross national debt is over $35 trillion And it continues to grow at a rapid and unsustainable rate every month.
To put this into context, the most reliable barometer of fiscal health is the ratio of debt to gross domestic product. 122 percent This is higher than all but a dozen other countries in the world and the highest peacetime ratio in U.S. history. Moreover, if the rhetoric from this year's presidential election is reflected in policy, this ratio will likely grow even further.
Not too long ago, when one of us retired, our debt-to-GDP ratio was only 35 percent. That was around the time we were at war in the Middle East. Our budget currently spends more money on interest payments on our national debt to bondholders around the world than on national defense. And because much of the U.S. debt is short-term, when bonds mature, they can be refinanced at even higher interest rates.
I know this isn't going to end well. However, you never know when things will go wrong. It's like someone jumping off a 100-story building and saying to themselves, “So far, so good,” as they tumble down to the 30th floor.
This is not a partisan issue and requires a bipartisan solution. Generations of politicians from both parties have found tax hikes and policy cuts unrewarding, and have taken the easy route of borrowing more and passing the buck on to the next generation.
Between tax cuts, massive spending increases, and responses to recession and COVID-19, this debt is now threatening the dollar as the world currency, turning an inevitable crash into a game of political musical chairs. , I hope the day of reckoning is under someone's watch.
Looking at the bigger picture, if you spend on things like:allEven if the federal government were reduced to zero, America would still be running a deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars. Think about it. No defense spending, no Department of Education, no FBI, no CIA, no food stamp money, no federal spending on cancer research. And with Republicans and Democrats recommending more spending and tax cuts, we remain in a dire situation.
It is clear that voters are deprioritizing this issue. Because good candidates respond to what they hear on the campaign trail, and elected officials keep a close eye on what topics people in their districts care about. It advances their legislative priorities. It's hard to remember, but in the not-so-distant past, controlling spending and creating a balanced budget was one of the priorities.
The party platform at the end of the century fiercely displayed its anti-debt zeal. The Republican Party isConstitutional amendment calling for a balanced budget” (2000) and “Creation of item veto rights'' (2004), and all savings from item vetoes “will be used to reduce the deficit'' (2004). Not to be outdone, the Democratic Party also promised the following:balance the budget every year(2000), “Bringing common-sense budget rules back…sort of.”Pay-as-you-go system“Rules Mandating Government Payments for New Initiatives” (2004).
This year, while staring down a very predictable (and far worse) fiscal crisis, the word “debt” has completely disappeared from the Republican platform, and deficits have appeared only once, in terms of trade deficits. A draft document released by the Democratic National Committee in July says a little more about the national debt and agrees to reduce the deficit. But relief for student loan debt owed by the government has received far more attention than the $35 trillion the government owes other countries.
We have seen and participated in more campaigns than we can count. We've seen voters rally around issues and make them the center of their campaigns. Therefore, we urge candidates and sitting members of Congress, whether at campaign events or other means, to tell them that they must take action to dig us out of this hole. We are weighing our future and the future of our children and grandchildren.
Cheri Bastos represented Illinois' 17th Congressional District from 2013 to 2023. She served as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from 2019 to 2021. Tom Davis represented Virginia's 11th District from 1995 to 2008. He served as Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee from 1998 to 2002.
