LOGAN – The race for Utah’s 2nd District seat in Congress has revealed two differing visions for ways to deal with the U.S. national debt, which has recently climbed to a staggering $40 trillion.
One of those is a complex three-part plan advanced by incumbent U.S. Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT). The other, advocated by Democratic challenger Peter Crosby of Providence, is relatively simple but may be extremely difficult to accomplish in the current climate on Capitol Hill.
In a recent newsletter, Moore outlined his plan, which calls for enactment of two pieces of legislation (the Comprehensive Congressional Budget Act and the Fiscal Commission Act) and a serious effort to confront the estimated $500 billion in tax dollars lost to fraud every year.
In an Aug. 26 town hall in Logan, however, Crosby said the solution to the national debt crisis is dirt simple to anyone who has ever tried to balance a budget: either decrease spending or increase revenue.
In the 1950s, he explains, President Dwight Eisenhower – a Republican – taught America how to get out of debt by implementing fiscal responsibility and greater accountability for everybody.
“During Eisenhower’s administration, there was a 91 percent income tax rate on the wealthy and a capital gains tax rate of 25 percent,” Crosby emphasizes. “That meant that everyone paid their fair share. Those taxes were then … reinvested in working class Americans to build the middle class, the economy and the tax base to finally create budget surpluses.”
But Moore counters that the factors influencing the current U.S. budget crisis are far from simple.
“Currently, three-quarters of all federal spending is mandatory,” the three-term incumbent points out. “That means that Congress haggles over just one quarter of the budget every year while the vast majority goes unchecked.”
Those mandatory expenditures in the federal budget cover Social Security (22 percent of federal spending), Medicare (15 percent), Medicaid/Other healthcare programs (13 percent) and Debt Service (15 percent).
Assuming that the Department of War’s budget accounts for another 13 percent of federal spending, that leaves less than 25 percent of the national revenue for discretionary spending.
But enactment of the Comprehensive Congressional Budget Act proposed by Moore would require Congress to actually vote on the whole budget every year, bring accountability to programs that haven’t seen reauthorizations in years.
The second proposal on Moore’s debt solution wish list is the Fiscal Commission Act, which would create a bicameral, partisan panel of House and Senate members. That group would be tasked with developing a plan to stabilize the debt-to-gross domestic product ratio that would be fast-tracked to floor consideration without amendments.
Moore believes that commission would be an excellent way to capitalize on existing bipartisan support for bringing the debt under control without politicizing the issue.
Finally, Moore and colleagues on House Budget Committee have also proposed the Anti-Fraud Fund Act.
That legislation would provide the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control program with $28 billion to fund attorneys and other resources to combat fraud.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that proposal would save the government $196 billion over ten years with a 7:1 ratio for dollars saved to dollars spent, netting $168 billion.
Whether either of the candidates’ solution to the budget crisis could survive congressional debate remains to be seen, however.