October 19 Meeting: A Challenge to You on National Budget Priorities

Our national budget problems are nothing if not challenging, so we put the challenge to you: Come to our October 19 Cracker Barrel meeting with at least one question and one comment. If you do that, we can fix the whole mess in one hour, town-meeting style.

We’re not looking for erudite commentary on the politics of a divided Congress or Harvard-vs.-Chicago economics. The real problem is an inability to set coherent national budget priorities. In a democracy, that depends less on technicalities than on goals and values.

Fareed Zakaria put it this way in an interview with the Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell: “The American people are very comfortable with Republicans on taxes and Democrats on spending.” Really? Are we conservatives who like our taxes low, socialists who want to sock it good to someone else, or both at once? Are we happy with a government that is an insurance company with an army auxiliary, or are there ways to make even the big “untouchables” in the budget work better while costing less?

Can we just go on this way, or will something have to give? Please, come prepared with some specific ideas. It seems unlikely that everyone’s will be the same!

You won’t need any deep knowledge of finance or economics to say what you think is right. But if you want some background, here are some readings:

·        A gloomy conservative view of things as they stand

·        The more hopeful leftish viewpoint of Modern Monetary Theory

·        A centrist perspective that sees budget problems as challenging, but not insoluble