Fiscal Talks Only Offer Short-Term Solutions, Ignore the Tough Problems

Farrell, Lawrence P., Jr., National Defense

* The nation's economic future is still in limbo. The White House and congressional Republicans are seeking to avert the fiscal duff, including the automatic spending cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011.

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How this will end is unclear. As the old aphorism goes, "Those who say, don't know, and those who know, don't say."

But we do know how we got here. The "supercommittee" last year only had to find $1.2 trillion in a combination of tax increases and expenditure savings over 10 years to avoid this cliff That is $120 billion a year from a federal budget of $3.7 trillion--only 2.4 percent of the budget even if all the savings came from spending. The supercommittee failed. There was a time in this country when if the congressional leadership sent a select committee into a room to cut a deal, the leadership wouldn't let the committee …

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Publication information: Article title: Fiscal Talks Only Offer Short-Term Solutions, Ignore the Tough Problems. Contributors: Farrell, Lawrence P., Jr. - Author. Magazine title: National Defense. Volume: 97. Issue: 710 Publication date: January 2013. Page number: 4. © 2009 National Defense Industrial Association. COPYRIGHT 2013 Gale Group.

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