We must cut federal spending, but ‘how’ matters

You have to admit, Mark Amodei makes a lot of sense.

In a speech to the Nevada Subcontractors Association annual meeting Tuesday, Second District congressional special election candidate Amodei clearly outlined the problems that led to the stalemate over the debt ceiling, which had been resolved just hours before he spoke. And he outlined why the 11th-hour solution isn't going to solve the underlying problem.

In short, it's the budget, baby.

"You cannot continue to borrow 40 cents of every dollar that you spend and expect your economy to be healthy," Amodei said. "You must live within your means."

As a longtime state senator, Amodei knows about balanced budgets -- Nevada law requires the Legislature to balance its budget every year. (This also allows lawmakers to boast of the accomplishment, which is a little like bragging you filed your tax return on time.)

Amodei said a focus on job-creating policies -- such as making it easier to use federal land for renewable energy projects -- isn't going to help anybody until the budget problem is solved.

"You can't do that when your argument is how do we raise taxes because we're borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar," he said. "Balancing the budget won't do it."

And he's right, it won't. As any financial expert will tell you, if you've submerged yourself in debt by living above your means, a balanced budget is only a good start. A real solution involves living below your means so you can pay back what you've borrowed.

Amodei isn't right on everything: He says he'd have voted against the debt-ceiling deal because it does little to control spending and the thinks the projected cuts won't happen. But that's simply irresponsible: The debt ceiling had to be raised to pay bills the country had already incurred; had it not been done, the consequences would have been disastrous for plenty of people.

In addition, a federal balanced budget amendment that contains a provision barring tax increases -- or at least imposing a supermajority requirement to raise taxes, similar to Nevada's constitution -- would inevitably lead to cuts in entitlement programs, which are the government's biggest-ticket items. It's not clear Amodei means to say "cut Social Security and Medicare" when he extols a balanced budget, but that's what people ought to hear.

But on the issue of budget discipline, Amodei makes excellent points, at least as far as he goes. It's the next sentence, and the one after that, which really matters. The fact that the United States government spends too much is obvious to most people. What's not so obvious is how we can realistically reduce that spending while making sure that the most important things the government does -- establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare -- are not diluted in the process.

That conversation is harder than a stump speech, because it means telling a lot of people that the system has to change, that certain things the government does it won't or can't do any longer, or will have to do differently. Nowhere is that more true than with entitlement programs.

Some Republicans -- including Rep. Paul Ryan, a man whom Amodei has said he wants to "cozy up" to and support -- want to fundamentally change a program such as Medicare for younger people, making it into something unrecognizable to those who've enjoyed the present system. Democrats rightly want to avoid that. But in order to sustain Medicare, they will have to give up something else.

Because like it or not, Mark Amodei is absolutely right when he says borrowing 40 cents on every dollar spent is unsustainable.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/SteveSebelius or reach him at 387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.