Fix U.S. budget for short, long term

Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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About 20% of federal government funding expires on Jan. 19 and the rest is only funded through Feb. 2 — Groundhog Day, in the traditional as well as metaphorical sense, given the budget brinkmanship that continues in Congress.

This time lawmakers will be reacting to a hastily hammered-out bill between bipartisan, bicameral congressional leaders that's just the latest episode of buck (actually, big bucks) passing. But even that is proving difficult, as far-right Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus threaten to derail the bill. In the process, they may end Louisiana Republican Rep. Mike Johnson's speakership, just as Kevin McCarthy's turbulent tenure was short-circuited by the short-tempered caucus.

The serial budget posturing is unproductive for Congress and the country. "Even the threat of a shutdown is very disruptive to the federal government," Kathryn Pearson, a University of Minnesota associate professor of political science who's an expert on Congress, told an editorial writer. "It takes up a lot of time and energy that could be spent on legislating on Capitol Hill."

That legislating should be focused on not just avoiding a shutdown but on shutting down a political process that doesn't offer a longer-term fix befitting the largest and most important economy on Earth — a status imperiled by a national debt that just passed the $34 trillion mark, with no end in sight. In fact, the U.S. Treasury expects to add another $1 trillion by March, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization "dedicated to increasing public awareness of the nature and urgency of key fiscal challenges threatening America's future, and to accelerating action on them."

Mandatory spending and net interest are nearly three-quarters of federal spending, a foundation representative told an editorial writer, with interest the fastest-growing budget category. Interest, it must be noted, accrued under Democratic and Republican administrations and congressional control alike.

The Peterson Foundation's nonpartisan nature is reflected in a statement from the group's CEO, Michael Peterson, who said, "We are beginning a new year, but our national debt remains on the same damaging and unsustainable path. The debt rises unabated because of well-known, structural drivers, including an aging population, high healthcare costs, rising interest costs, and a tax system that doesn't fund what we've promised."

Every member of Congress — and the country, to some degree — is complicit in the debt, and no one party offers any certitude about addressing it. So a different, more politically sustainable approach should be tried. Fortunately, bills introduced in the House and Senate recognize that need. Specifically, the Fiscal Commission Act of 2023 in the House and the Fiscal Stability Act of 2023 in the Senate would fundamentally do the same thing: create a bipartisan, bicameral commission on fiscal reform and responsibility.

The House bill's goal is to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio at the earliest possible date, but within a decade of the formation of the commission, while the Senate version looks to achieve a debt-to-GDP ratio below 100% by 2039. Each version, according to the Peterson Foundation, has a similar scope for recommendations: Discretionary and mandatory spending and the projected gap between projected revenue and spending. And each would have a similar composition of members: 12 bicameral congressional members and four outside experts.

The House bill would require majority approval of recommendations by the entire commission, with support from at least three members of each party. The Senate bill would require majority approval from only the commission's congressional members, with at least three from the president's party and three from the opposing party. Congress would vote up or down on recommendations without delay or amendment.

The Peterson Foundation looks to previous commissions as successful models, including the Greenspan Commission from the mid-1980s tasked with stabilizing Social Security, and the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission of 2005 to reorganize programs and resources in the Defense Department. (Politics, unfortunately, curbed the promising start of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reforms, known as Simpson-Bowles, in 2010.)

From a political science perspective, Pearson is right to point out that "It is Congress's job to make these tough decisions," which "really shouldn't be relegated to a commission." But unfortunately, for decades, Congress hasn't made the tough decisions, unwilling to really reckon with the revenue and expenditure imbalance that doesn't just have fiscal implications but foreign policy ones as well, since such instability weakens the country. The BRAC Commission was indeed successful, however, because, as Pearson notes, its required up-and-down vote with no amendments. Currently the proposed House and Senate bills are similarly structured.

Beyond the Peterson Foundation, other individuals and institutions have endorsed the concept of a commission. Congress should, too — ideally as part and parcel of its partial, more immediate solution to the current budget crisis. After all, when in a hole, one should stop digging — as any groundhog knows.