On Monday, for the first time since the attack on Pearl Harbor, Standard and Poor's downgraded its long-term outlook on American debt from ""stable"" to ""negative."" The downgrade served as a warning to U.S. policy makers that something needs to be done to address the country's growing debt crisis.
Yet as our nation tries to find ways to reduce our staggering $14.3 trillion debt, it appears as though President Barack Obama has seen fit to use the crisis to gain a political advantage.
In what was by all means the most divisive speech of his presidency, Obama declared that the budget proposal from Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, would ""lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we've known."" How? During his speech the president claimed the Republican proposal would allow ""our roads to crumble and bridges collapse.""
Grandparents, poor children and ""middle-class families who have children with autism or Down syndrome"" would lose their health care and would be left to ""fend for themselves.""
While exploiting the most vulnerable members of society for political gain is not unheard of in politics, the president went a step further by claiming the reason such calamities would occur was because Republicans want to give tax breaks to ""millionaires and billionaires."" So how exactly does this blatant partisanship solve our budget crisis?
Let's review the facts. First of all, the same president who has increased the national debt by $4 trillion in two years is now calling for us to ""live within our means"" and reduce our debt by $4 trillion dollars over the next 12 years. The GOP plan, on the other hand, cuts the debt by $4.4 trillion in the next decade, and creates a plan to pay off our debt completely by 2050. The proposal does in fact make huge cuts to entitlement programs, and essentially defunds Obama's health-care law. Yet there seemed to have been a consensus in Washington D.C. just a few weeks ago that drastic cuts needed to be made. So why now are Democrats and the president so incensed?
Some have suggested that it's because Obama is now in full campaign mode. While this in fact may be true, I tend to believe it has more to do with our President's fundamental understanding of wealth, and where it comes from.
During his speech the president alluded to the federal government ""paying for tax cuts"" when talking about tax cuts for ""millionaires and billionaires."" Yet this interpretation implies that the federal government ""pays for"" every single dollar you as an individual earn. It implies that the money you earn isn't really yours; after all, the government pays for you to keep that money. It's true the president could have been making a point about accounting rather than principle. But then why doesn't he explicate that ""millionaires and billionaires"" are in fact paying for the increase in spending rather than implying that the federal government ""pays for"" the decrease in revenue?
If the president wants to advocate for raising taxes on the wealthy he has every right to do it. After all, raising taxes is in fact one way to reduce the national debt. While I would argue that the top 5 percent of income earners (people making over $160,000 a year) already pay nearly 60 percent of all income taxes, you have every right to demand they pay more. When I remind you that 47 percent of Americans pay no income tax at all, you can certainly demand that the rich pay their ""fair share.""
But when the president claims that the federal government ""pays for"" tax cuts, he crosses the line. The founding principles of this country dictate that individuals are entitled to their own wealth. Asking the rich to pay more in itself is no assault on freedom. Claiming though, as the president has, that the government ""pays for"" an individual to keep their own money is a fundamental deviation from the ideas that made out country great.
Standard and Poor's downgrade Monday was a sure sign that something needs to be done to fix our nation's debt crisis. If we continue down our current path, America will face a considerably different future than the one we've known.
The GOP's budget is a good, albeit difficult, first step in addressing this issue. While Obama would like to use the matter to score cheap political points, the costs of allowing partisanship to come in the way of progress are far too great to ignore.
Matt Payne is a junior majoring in Chinese and economics. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
