Redirecting the Fiscal Big Mo

Years ago I was working on a Congressional campaign during primary season.  We had been in the race for several months when suddenly, on the last day to file in the primary a new candidate swooped into the picture.   Weeks later, we were forced into a runoff.  And though we still had a strong lead I could see in the eyes of the campaign consultant I worked for that the momentum, known as the Big Mo, had shifted, leaving our campaign struggling to hold on.  That momentum carried the other candidate to eight terms in the US Congress.

The Big Mo is critical in any campaign, not just campaigns for office.  It also holds true for issues.   Today, the Big Mo is on the march in our nation as nearly every state grapples with budget shortfalls and major deficits.  Republicans capitalized on the crisis during the last election cycle and rightfully so.  Someone needed to show some energy about SOMETHING in 2010.  Sadly, their chosen mantra since winning races across the US has been to kill public funding for everything from education to healthcare to parks.

Republicans are foaming at the mouth at the notion of destroying public sector unions and darling projects of progressives.  They’re eager to cry “fiscal responsibility” but their work is nothing short of sacrificing sanity.  For in their feverish pursuits to defund state employees, pension funds, Medicaid, public libraries, and everything at schools from art to football they’ve failed to show any degree of a spine.  You see, there is no safer political message in America today than to say CUT SPENDING, for it’s the message with Big Mo.

The truth is there is no way, none whatsoever, to cut our way out of this crisis.  To be fiscally responsible, to be true to the notion of improving the economies of our federal, state, and local governments someone is going to have to grow a pair.  We have to reduce spending while also raising revenue.  That means increasing taxes.  It means rolling back the Bush/Obama tax cuts.  It means that states like Florida consider a state income tax.  It means millage increases in school districts.  It means doing so in an intelligent way that doesn’t overburden working families and the poor, and it means doing so without soaking the rich.

Slash and burn is not a viable economic policy.  Only reasonable budget cuts coupled with intelligent, sound tax increases will prevail at the needed pace.   It worked under President Clinton from 1993 to 2001, but until the Big Mo finds its way back to more realistic pursuits we will all be struggling to hold on indefinitely.