ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 6, 1996 TAG: 9610070147
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
WHAT A breath of bracing air, to hear Martha Phillips in Roanoke talking about real, fiscal choices confronting the nation - in contrast with the blather and baloney, the distortions and demagoguery all too common in campaign-speak issuing from candidates for national offices.
"The problem with the deficit is, it's not like a wolf at the door," she told the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce last week. "It's like termites in the basement."
Indeed. Just look at the foundations.
Phillips is executive director of the Concord Coalition, a Washington-based group that presses for action to reduce the national debt. Fiscal policy isn't the most exciting subject around, but it is important - especially for the future of the country, and for generations not well-represented politically because they don't vote and don't have powerful lobbying organizations to promote their interests and protect their benefits.
After Phillips' speech in Roanoke Thursday, she received a standing ovation, and deservedly. The Concord Coalition that she represents - it has a 400-member chapter in Southwest Virginia - is one of the few voices crying for fiscal sanity in America today.
The problem, alas, is as much with the public as with the politicians.
If fewer Americans demanded preservation of every government goody that they currently receive, and then some, with all budget cuts to be imposed on the undeserving other guy and on "waste, fraud and abuse"; if fewer voters were prepared to punish any politician crazy enough to let slip the truth about, say, entitlements; then surely Bill Clinton and other Democrats wouldn't have gained such mileage from the charge that Republicans want to "cut" Medicare. Nor, surely, would Bob Dole have betrayed his record and reputation by promising mega tax cuts and a balanced budget, with Social Security and Medicare left untouched.
In a conversation at The Roanoke Times, Phillips acknowledged talk about a bipartisan commission that, after the election, would "fix" entitlements whose current growth rates are unsustainable. But, as she pointed out, the politicians only make that deferred task more difficult by scaring senior citizens about the other party's intentions.
"After telling people that they're going to lose their Medicare, how are they going to turn on a dime and say, `Gee, Medicare is in trouble and we're going to have to take care of this'?"
The issue, Phillips noted, isn't so much the federal deficit, which is low by recent standards. It is the accumulated $5 trillion in federal debt, and the prospect of out-of-control entitlement spending when baby boomers retire. Even more crucially, it is the fate of a nation that spends its riches on the elderly and interest payments while underinvesting in its future.
The termites are busy, and the Concord Coalition poses questions we should be asking not just of candidates, but of ourselves. Such as: Precisely what do you propose to do about intergenerational inequity?
LENGTH: Medium: 56 linesby CNB