Staying Fit
The new year brings the same crew of cooks in the nation's kitchen, each with different recipes for how to whip up a menu of fiscal change that will satisfy the nation without burning down the house.
After a $6 billion campaign and a post-election tug-of-war, President Obama still sits at one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, with a Republican-majority House and Democratic-controlled Senate at the other end.
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Financial markets and public opinion have made it clear they want leaders to work through four potent dishes — reducing the debt, energizing the economy, implementing the health care law and actually cooperating.
Reasons to Be Hopeful
As the president begins his second term and Congress reconvenes this month, a unique blend of motivation and opportunity exists in abundance. For one thing, none of the Washington politicians has to worry about partisan elections this year. For another, countries such as Greece and Spain have shown the sorts of social and economic upheaval that result when a nation doesn't preemptively tackle its fiscal imbalances. With that dynamic, "it's possible to get some things done now that were not possible before," says Allan Meltzer, professor of political economy at Carnegie Mellon University and a fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Few people understand the issues better than G. William Hoagland, a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center. For 33 years, Hoagland worked on Capitol Hill, with a unique vantage point as staff director of the Senate Budget Committee and as a top aide to former Senate Republican leader Bill Frist. Hoagland says that he has never seen so many crucial issues come together at once — including the temporary budget that runs out in March, the need to raise the nation's debt limit and the "fiscal cliff" deadline. The fiscal problems are so big and so fraught, he says, the two parties will finally be forced to work together for a change. "It's going to force us back into the old bipartisan way in which we used to get work done around here," he says. "I see coming out of this better policies to address the challenges our country faces."
Republicans and Democrats each have favorite ingredients — the GOP is pushing for cuts to spending, including Medicare and Social Security, and Democrats want higher taxes for the wealthy. An AARP Bulletin poll found public support for raising taxes to close the deficit, strengthen Medicare and Social Security, and finance schools and highways, but skepticism that agreement can be struck. The coming months will show whether lawmakers can compromise to come up with what many experts say is needed — a federal budget that is $4 trillion smaller over the next 10 years than the $44 trillion it would be under current law.
Now is the time for action. If the two sides don't come to an agreement, the consequences are significant. "Debt will continue to balloon. We are borrowing one-third of everything we spend right now," says Isabel Sawhill, a budget expert at the Brookings Institution.
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