Letter: Democrats know all about keeping budgets balanced

Wednesday, March 21, 2001 | 9:17 a.m.

This is in response to the letter from Bruce Pyle questioning the Democratic fuss about the Bush budget. In his letter Pyle implies that we Democrats are just too fiscally irresponsible to understand that the Bush budget makes sense.

First let's put fiscal history into a bit of perspective. The last president to balance the federal budget before Bill Clinton was Lyndon Johnson, also a Democrat. He left office in 1969 with a balanced budget and a national debt of less than $1 trillion. Between Johnson and Clinton we largely lived under Republican administrations (except for four years of Jimmy Carter). Under all of those Republican administrations we did not have one balanced budget. Voodoo economics under Reagan was the worst. It resulted in large deficits and huge increases in national debt. When Clinton took office the national debt was reaching $6 trillion, and Republicans were pressing hard to add an amendment to the Constitution requiring the budget be balanced. Clinton rejected that idea, preferring instead to complete a job that no one (including Republicans) thought possible in such a short time.

Democrats are fiscally responsible and do not object to balanced budgets. What we object to is the taking of our surplus and passing it to the wealthy Republicans who sponsored the Bush campaign. Paying down the debt is a more egalitarian method.

Payment of the debt results in a two-edged benefit. First, the cost of government goes down for all of us because we eliminate the federal interest expense. Second, payment of the debt will release $6 trillion into the supply of investment money available for things such as student loans, capital for small businesses and local construction projects. The fiscal benefit of your tax refund does not measure up to the potential benefit of debt reduction.

TED O. HALL