Opposing Viewpoints: Democrats Must Accept Cuts to Balance Budget
2 min readBy ANDREA FORCUM
Political Columnist
Time ticks away toward the newly established March 18 government shutdown deadline, while Congress is at a stalemate regarding the national budget.
Undoubtedly the current standoff is caused by stubbornness on both sides, but the proposed $10.5 billion cut proposed by Democrats is ludicrous.
The current budget is a $3.7 trillion plan; 1.65 trillion of that is in the red.
Republicans propose a $61 billion cut from the current budget. Those cuts would come primarily from discretionary funds.
Sen. Dick Durbin seems to sum up the Democratic stance perfectly, “You can’t cut your way out of our crisis; you can’t tax your way out of our crisis. You have to deal with this, in its entirety, and we have to think our way out of it.”
Unfortunately, thinking without action is just the political lip service that got America into this mess—spending without considering what the expenditures would do to the nation in the long term, and spending money that the nation simply did not have.
The situation within which the nation finds itself is not comfortable.
There is no easy out, and the substantial cuts proposed by Republicans will hurt.
As Obama said during this year’s State of the Union Address, “This freeze will require painful cuts. Already, we’ve frozen the salaries of hardworking federal employees for the next two years.”
Democrats have repeatedly criticized the Republicans plan as too drastic.
However, as Rep. Jim Jordan said, “when you look at it in the context that there’s a $14 trillion debt, it seems to me we should be able to find $100 billion,” $14 trillion in debt is certainly not a figure to ignore; in fact it is a sum that seems almost insurmountable.
According to the website, usdebtclock.org, our national debt is growing at the rate of $100 thousand about every five seconds.
It is time to stop the growing national debt and take serious strides at getting out of debt.
The current administration keeps encouraging the nation to set up innovative new ways to provide for the future.
What better legacy is there than to cut the debt and provide a more stable economic climate?
