Via Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), the Democrats’ latest gambit regarding the upcoming vote to raise the federal debt limit is to suggest placing a cap on annual deficits, whereas Republicans (and a number of Democrats) favor caps on total spending — the difference, of course, being that Reid’s plan could potentially (and almost certainly would) be used a gateway to tax increases.
According to Reid, there’s a simple solution to all of our fiscal problems. “If we’re able to cap deficits, it automatically brings down the debt,” Reid told reporters on a conference call Wednesday. “That’s the key to all of this.”
So, if it’s such a great idea, and if it would really bring down the debt “automatically” as Reid suggests, why haven’t we tried it before?
In fact, it has been tried before, during the Reagan administration. The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985 set gradually annual, gradually declining deficit targets that “required” automatic spending cuts if the targets weren’t met.
How did that work out? Our current situation speaks for itself, but here are some figures from the Government Accountability Office:
|
|
Deficit Target Set in 1985 (billions $) |
Revised Deficit Target, 1987 (billions $) |
Actual Deficit (billions $) |
|
1986 |
176 |
– |
221 |
|
1987 |
144 |
– |
150 |
|
1988 |
108 |
144 |
155 |
|
1989 |
72 |
136 |
152 |
|
1990 |
36 |
100 |
221 |
|
1991 |
0 |
64 |
269 |
|
1992 |
– |
28 |
290 |
|
1993 |
– |
0 |
255 |
Oh, deficits. They were so cute back then. They grow up so fast.
Bottom line, this is just the latest ploy from a Democratic party that knows deep down the public is hungry for change when it comes to federal spending, but it too fanatically wedded to the status quo to actually do anything about it. Kind of ironic, isn’t it?