Hold line on U.S. spending

If consumers have learned anything from the current economic crisis, it ought to be the wisdom of “paying as you go.”

Indeed, statistics show that personal savings rates are up and credit card borrowing rates are falling.

Now, if only the federal government would follow suit.

Maybe there’s hope …

“Pay-as-you-go” legislation has been introduced in Congress by House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer for the Obama administration.

The legislation would require Congress to approve new funding only if Congress could also find savings to offset the additional spending. In other words, if a new program is expanded, an old program should be cut.

Or at least that’s the basic idea.

In Washington, it’s never that simple.

Let’s state first of all for the record that we believe in the concept of paying as you go.

Politicians should not be mortgaging the country’s future — the people’s future — by habitually approving programs that we can’t pay for.

If we can’t pay for those programs today, who’s to say that tomorrow will be better? Indeed, it might be worse; tomorrow’s taxpayers may be even less able to pay the debt on programs that Washington now is ramping up.

No: Government cannot keep approving services without also providing money.

Yes: Government ought to operate on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Of course, there are some things worth going into debt for — just as there are for the consumer.

The problem has been that Congress doesn’t know what those things are. Lawmakers are willing to send us into debt for almost any program — especially since providing handouts — programs, services, “pork” — to a grateful constituency buys votes now, whereas the bills may not come due for years.

For a brief time in the past, pay-as-you-go was statutorily required. In comments this week at the Sorensen Insti-tute for Political Leadership’s College Leaders Program, Mr. Hoyer said the requirement was a chief reason the nation ran a budget surplus for four years of the Clinton administration.

A thriving economy helped account for the surplus. But PayGo helped. 

PayGo is not a perfect system, but it is a start. In the years it was in force, Congress found plenty of loopholes in its own promise to be more fiscally responsible.

But it could not evade total responsibility. PayGo at least forces some measure of discipline and of accountability, and any such measure — however small — is better than none.

The Bush administration ran up debt protecting us from terrorist enemies. The Obama administration is running up debt trying to “stimulate” the economy while stymieing the stimulative role of private enterprise.

Both applications of debt have their critics.

The important thing now is to staunch the red ink. America cannot remain healthy under the massive debt burden that has been imposed.

If PayGo will cause Congress to stop before it spends, and to find money from budget cuts rather than tax increases, let’s give it another chance.