There’s a saying in Washington when a circumstance arises that is so dire that fixing it requires every single person to pitch in and help: “Everybody’s ox is getting gored.” The phrase means that all benefits across the board bestowed upon the public by the federal government must be cut to address the problem.
The coronavirus pandemic is an ox-goring moment, according to Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger from Illinois. Aside from killing more than 100,000 people in the United States in roughly four months, the virus has added trillions of dollars to the national debt as the federal government responds to it. Reversing that amount of red ink will require tax increases and entitlement reform, the congressman told the Washington Examiner.
“I think everybody is going to have to own a piece of it,” he said, adding that “it’s going to take some tax increases in certain areas and entitlement reform. … The same old Republican and Democratic debate is not going to suffice anymore.”
Republicans have long been the guardians against tax increases, and Democrats have rebuffed efforts to reduce benefits from entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. But skyrocketing debt levels may make it impossible for the parties to maintain their respective positions.
“Democrats don’t want to give on entitlements. Republicans don’t want to give on taxes. But if we give a little on each, we can fix this,” the congressman said.
He also said that addressing the country’s debt obligation is a tall order and that the debate on it will likely wait until after the election since it will be a politically charged issue.
The size of the federal public debt is expected to grow by roughly $4 trillion by the end of September and exceed the size of the economy by year’s end, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan think tank located in Washington.
Meanwhile, the amount of revenue that the federal government is projected to collect in fiscal year 2020 is $3.6 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which is Capitol Hill’s official bookkeeper.
This means that the total added debt for 2020 will be larger than all the revenue that the federal government collects for that same year. As of June 5, total federal debt amounted to $25 trillion, according to the Treasury Department.
Kinzinger projected that total debt could be $31 trillion before the federal response to the pandemic is over. He also believes that voters will support efforts to reduce the debt if lawmakers are truthful about it.
“We need to be honest and put everything out in front of the American people without trying to win the political argument,” he said.
That could mean following in Ross Perot’s footsteps, Kinzinger suggested.
In his bid to be president in the 1992 election, Perot used dozens of charts to show the grave financial shape of the federal government: At that point, the national debt was $4 trillion. The charts earned him a lot of laughs on late-night talk shows, but they also educated voters about the seriousness of spending at the federal level.
Kinzinger thinks Perot’s strategy could be replicated today — hopefully producing the same outcome.
“I think the American people would completely be supportive if they know that we would discipline spending in that process,” he said.
For entitlement reform, the congressman suggested raising the age at which workers receive Social Security benefits since people are expected to live and work longer.
“I think the easiest thing to fix is Social Security,” he said. “My generation gets it at 67. Actuarial tables say I will live to be 100. I’ll be in much better shape at 67 than a 67-year-old was 20 years ago. That needs to be addressed.”
For reforming Medicare, the congressman thinks that advances in technology will help lower the cost curve.
“I’m actually pretty optimistic long term because I think technology is going to revolutionize healthcare — with things like telemedicine,” he said, referring to emerging tools that allow healthcare professionals to evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients remotely.
Addressing the debt will also mean raising taxes — on everyone, not just the rich.
“The math doesn’t work if you just raise taxes on the rich,” the congressman said. “It makes good politics, maybe, but it doesn’t make good numbers.”
Of the roughly 170 million tax returns that are filed each year, only 12 million of them earn $200,000 or more, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s official cost estimator for tax bills. There simply are not enough wealthier taxpayers to shoulder the entire burden of reducing the debt.
That being said, roughly 83 million tax filers do not pay federal income taxes at all and instead receive money from the government, according to the JCT, which means they hardly have any resources to help reduce the debt.
This means that roughly half of all tax filers would be responsible for paying down the federal debt, which is why Kinzinger thinks this accomplishment will take decades to achieve and not years.
“You’re not going to get out of deficit [and debt] even in the next 10 years, even with aggressive measures,” he said, adding that making small changes in the short term can produce huge benefits in the future. But it won’t happen without both political parties being willing to dig in and make some tough choices.
“In order to do anything, I think both sides are going to have to give,” he said.
