Now's time to repair debt ceiling for future -- Feb. 12, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER  

“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining,” President Kennedy said in his 1962 State of the Union Address.

The sun is shining, and now’s the time to fix the debt ceiling for the future.  

Led by Speaker John Boehner, the House stepped back from the brink Tuesday and approved extending the federal government’s borrowing authority until March 15, 2015, no strings attached. The Senate followed Wednesday.  

Congress does its job -- hip, hip, hurray!

It’s a sign of our low expectations of Washington that the absence of a last-minute game of chicken was considered a great achievement.  

The country will not suffer a self-inflicted fiscal black eye. Yes! The government will honor its debts, federal parks will stay open and our economy won’t go into a tailspin. We’re No. 1!

There will be peace in the valley again. Ha. Let’s not go overboard. Forget peace in the valley or on the Hill.   

Boehner tried for two weeks to squeeze concessions from the White House in return for Republican votes to lift the debt ceiling. A change in the Affordable Care Act? No.  Approval of the Keystone XL pipeline? No. Restoration of cost-of-living increases to military pensions? No. 

President Barack Obama wouldn’t budge from a “clean” bill.

Boehner told his House Republican colleagues at a private breakfast Tuesday that the measure would include no special conditions. The goal was practical: Congress would do its job and avoid an election-year repeat of last fall’s high drama showdown and shutdown.

Last October, Republicans hoping to kill the health law forced a 16-day federal government shutdown that did nothing to dislodge Obamacare but took a $24 billion bite out of the economy, as estimated by Standard & Poor. Americans mostly blamed Republicans, although Democrats’ approval ratings slid as well.  

“We’re not going to make ourselves the story,” Boehner said at the breakfast, The Washington Post reported. The room was hushed as he returned to his seat.

“I’m getting this monkey off your back, and you’re not going to even clap?” the Ohio Republican asked in mock scorn. Such is party unity among the GOP.

Boehner has long had problems bringing his conference together at all, much less mustering the 218 votes that constitute a House majority.

“When you don’t have 218 votes, you have nothing,” he told reporters.

The debt limit measure passed 221 to 201 in the House, with 199 Republicans voting no. Boehner and 27 of his fellow Republicans voted for it. Most of the GOP yes votes came from House leaders, such as Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, or members who are retiring, such as Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia. 

The White House didn’t gloat, but press secretary Jay Carney did suggest that Congress now get behind Obama’s push to hike the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and renew long-term jobless benefits. As if.

Congress and the White House should use the breathing room of the next year to work together to make the debt ceiling a non- issue, as it once was. Neither party should lose stature because it acts responsibly. Paying our bills should be a given, not a bargaining chip.

Some in Congress have introduced fixes to the recurring debit limit debacle. Rep. Mike Honda, a California Democrat, and Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Chuck Schumer of New York and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii have bills that would shift the role of Congress. Instead of approving increases in the debt ceiling, Congress would have to disapprove them.

A similar proposal by Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, became part of last fall’s deal that raised the debt ceiling until Feb. 7. Democrats want to make permanent the McConnell fix.

A few centrist Republicans say they’re interested in the idea, but it’s unlikely to gain traction this year as Democrats and Republicans score political points before the midterm elections.

Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, “When this is over, we will focus on our agenda and – if we win six seats in the Senate – what we will do different if we control all of Congress.”

Boehner was wrong about one thing.  Republicans did become the story. Washington news has become a running tally of winners and losers.    

“GOP’s debt ceiling surrender,” read headlines in Politico and other news outlets.

This time, though, the Republicans’ political retreat was a victory for the country. Boehner deserves a hand. 

And as the sun shines, Democrats and Republicans should join in fixing the debt ceiling for the future.

©2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Spare a dime? Paying for government that helps millions -- July 28, 2011 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Maybe the question should be who in America doesn’t get a break from Uncle Sam.

It’s not just the fat cats, Big Oil and General Electric that get special indulgences. The generous uncle makes life sweeter for ordinary folk too, although few even realize it.

Sixty percent of people who take the home mortgage deduction on their income tax returns say they haven’t used a government social program. Forty-four percent of Social Security recipients deny they’ve received any benefit as do about 40 percent of Medicare recipients, according to a study by Cornell University political scientist Suzanne Mettler.

A review of the role of government is in order -- before lobbyists swarm Capitol Hill to “help” Congress make program cuts totaling hundreds of billions of dollars. Remember: We’ve seen only overall framework numbers – not specific spending cuts. Those decisions will be made later – trust us, lawmakers say.

Here’s a stunning stat: The federal government sends out 70 million checks a month, says President Obama. No, it’s closer actually to 80 million, says Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Even 80 million doesn’t begin to define the government’s scope. The Washington Post figured that in all some 211.8 million checks were payable -- in June alone.

The Post’s analysis of who gets the 80 million checks, or electronic payments, found the largest group was Social Security recipients – 56 million. The disabled, veterans, federal workers and retirees received payments as did non-defense contractors, railroad retirees, coal miners with black lung, IRS vendors and taxpayers receiving refunds from the IRS.

Besides those checks are 100 million Medicare payments to doctors, hospitals, labs and other providers, more than 21 million households receiving food stamps, 6.4 million active and retired defense personnel , and 1.6 million defense travel and other invoices. Medicaid, the health program for the poor and elderly run by states, wasn’t on the Post’s list, but the Census Bureau reported that there were 58 million Medicaid beneficiaries in 2008.

Everybody assumes the cuts will affect someone else, lop off waste and fraud, hit the less deserving. Nobody wants to go back to the days when getting old meant living in poverty and sickness.

But constitutional conservatives do like to quote James Madison, who said he couldn’t lay his finger on the article of the Constitution that granted Congress the right to spend the money of constituents on “objects of benevolence.”

Madison was talking about aid to French refugees from what’s now Haiti – not about medical care or benefits to seniors. But tea partiers and others who think government should shrink to the limited powers explicitly granted in the Constitution seize on his statement as vindication for ending Social Security as we know it and dismantling safety net programs. Even Obama said Social Security and Medicare were on the table. Everybody says changes won’t touch anyone 55 and older.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas., a presidential hopeful, contends that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are all unconstitutional because the Constitution doesn’t specifically call for social insurance programs. He discounts the 1937 Supreme Court ruling that found Social Security constitutional.

Critics of government would like to forget that the Constitution also says government was established to promote the general welfare. They say liberals have misconstrued the phrase.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt cited the “general welfare” in June 1934 when he proposed a new social insurance program that would help shield people from the “hazards and vicissitudes of life.”

“Fear and worry based on unknown danger contribute to social unrest and economic demoralization,” he wrote. “If, as our Constitution tells us, our federal government was established among other things ‘to promote the general welfare,’ it is our plain duty to provide for that security upon which welfare depends.”

These days the angry talk in Washington is more about getting political advantage in 2012 than promoting welfare for generations to come. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., holds fast to his declaration that his chief job is to limit Obama to one term.

Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the role of Congress is to thwart a president’s future or that the president’s role is step aside and keep his collar and cuffs clean for his re-election bid.

Unfortunately, neither this president nor congressional leaders are likely to say, as Roosevelt did, “Among our objectives I place the security of the men, women and children of the nation first.” Millions who rely on Uncle Sam face uncertainty.

© 2011 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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The logic of lifting the debt limit -- June 9, 2011 column

By MARSHA MERCER

A large majority of people believe the nation’s economy would tank if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling. It follows logically that a large majority would favor raising the debt ceiling.

Forget logic. Barely half of Americans favor raising the debt limit, even if Congress also sharply cuts spending. That sobering news in The Washington Post appeared under the headline: “Americans are conflicted about raising the debt limit.”

What? “Americans have a collective death wish about the economy” wouldn’t fit on the page?

Seventy-one percent of people thought failing to raise the debt limit would cause serious harm to the economy, but only 51 percent supported raising the limit while making deep spending cuts, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

People have heard the dire warnings about what happens if we default on our financial obligations -- and they just don’t care? Are they really saying, “Let’s throw the economy under the train right now. It’s still weak and won’t put up much of a fight”?

I don’t think so, not for a minute. Nobody wants the economy to fail. People are desperate for jobs and economic security. Something else must be going on. Another response in the Post survey crystallized the political problem behind the debt ceiling question.

Asked which political party would do a better job coping with the big problems facing the country over the next few years, one person in five volunteered “neither.” Neither. That’s harsh. And entirely logical.

Neither party has come through the last couple of years dusted in gold. Overall, people trust Democrats more than Republicans, 41 percent to 32 percent, the poll found, but Democrats can't feel good knowing only two people in five have confidence in them.

Washington exists in a parallel universe where the drama concerns how deeply to slash spending and remake government. Poll after poll shows there’s no great appetite in the country for the kinds of big programmatic changes being considered. People favor spending about the same for Medicare and Medicaid.

Interestingly, seniors oppose the Medicare restructuring passed by House Republicans even though they’d be protected and the changes would affect only younger retirees.

I’m not saying we can’t think of worthy cuts. But we know, if we think about it, that each cut comes with a cost.

The federal workforce? Pluck that low-hanging fruit. We surely don’t need so many bureaucrats, uh, unless they’re the physicians and scientists at the National Institutes of Health curing cancer. Them we need.

Congressional pay? Surely I’m not alone in my unhappy thoughts that my tax dollars go toward the $174,000-a-year salary, plus benefits, of one Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.

Waste, fraud and abuse? Our old friends. We should stamp out all three, absolutely, and every administration tries. Even the Pentagon isn’t buying $600 toilets and $400 hammers anymore.

The home mortgage interest deduction is a classic example of how difficult it is to curb tax expenditures, the tax code’s revenue losers. President Obama and his bipartisan fiscal commission proposed scaling back the deduction. It’s logical as the deduction is costly and favors wealthier taxpayers.

Some 35 million Americans claim the mortgage deduction, and it will cost the federal government $131 billion in lost revenue in 2012 alone, according to Calvin Johnson, a tax professor at the University of Texas. To take the deduction, though, you have to itemize, and only the top third of wage earners itemize. Two-thirds of taxpayers aren’t even eligible for the break.

Johnson also told David Kocieniewski of The New York Times last year, “No one can make a serious intellectual argument in favor of the mortgage interest deduction.” And he said, “Why should the government subsidize homeowners rather than renters? The only thing it’s good for is middle-class votes.”

Not exactly. The housing industry has suffered a lot over the last few years, and this hardly is the time to add economic stress. The National Association of Home Builders has a Web effort savemymortgageinterestdeduction.com. Rep. Gary G. Miller, R-Calif., introduced a sense of the Congress resolution that says the deduction should be left unrestricted. More than 150 cosponsors have signed on.

And there’s this. Asked whether the deduction should be eliminated, 61 percent of Americans said no. This was true even though only 43 percent said they personally took the deduction, a Gallup-USA Today poll found in April.

Like the seniors who want to preserve Medicare for their younger friends and relatives, people who don’t take the mortgage deduction want others to benefit. We’re all in this together.

That’s so logical even politicians should understand it.

© 2011 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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