
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, November 27, 1994                   TAG: 9412290009
SECTION: EDITORIALS                    PAGE: G2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FISCAL TRUTH

AMONG THE few voices of uncompromising reason on the deficit issue is the Concord Coalition. The bipartisan organization, founded two years ago by former Sens. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, a Democrat, and Warren Rudman of New Hampshire, a Republican, is working to intensify its anti-deficit grass-roots activities of educating the public and pressuring the politicians.

In the Roanoke Valley, the effort is co-chaired by former 6th District Congressmen James Olin, a Democrat, and Caldwell Butler, a Republican. Both men, like Tsongas and Rudman, have reputations for sound judgment and independent minds. It's welcome news that the local chapter, like others around the country, is becoming more active.

Fundamental to the coalition's thinking are two points, neither of which most politicians are eager to embrace.

One is that the deficit, in and of itself, harms America's economic well-being and diminishes her future prospects.

This isn't quite the familiar bromide it may seem. For it means the coalition is not preoccupied with whether current taxation is too high or too low, or federal spending is wise or wasteful. The coalition's core concern, as it should be given the current condition of federal finances, is the imbalance between revenues and expenditures and the effect on national debt as a portion of the economy.

The second point is that the budget cannot be balanced, and the debt brought down, without shared sacrifice - including by the middle class that constitutes the biggest bloc of voters.

The sacrifice could take the form of tax increases or reduced spending on the middle class. The coalition's 1993 five-year budget-balancing plan wisely recommends some of each: a phased-in 50-cent gas-tax increase, for example, and a comprehensive means test for entitlement beneficiaries.

The coalition doesn't pretend the plan is unchangeable, only that it's workable. And it doesn't pretend the plan's 2-1 combination of spending cuts and tax increases would be painless, only that failure to stop and undo the spiraling national debt will in the end do much greater harm.

The Concord Coalition is asking what politicians across the country ought to be asking Americans to do: Understand the options, choose among them, live with the consequences.

by CNB