By now, most people recognize that the United States' debt is growing at an unsustainable pace. For various reasons, federal deficits and debt have ballooned in recent years. It is clear that Congress will have to make very tough decisions to get the budget back on track.
With a national debt now approximately equal to our gross domestic product and an annual deficit in excess of $1 trillion, we recognize that all Americans will have to bear significant sacrifice — in the form of spending cuts and probably raised taxes as well. And while the necessary measures will surely be painful for most Americans, we expect that they will step up and accept the requisite changes if they think it will solve our considerable fiscal problems.
We were therefore somewhat reluctant to criticize national House Republicans when we learned of their proposal to make draconian cuts — as much as 15 percent or more in some areas — to federal aid for science, research, education and other areas of domestic spending. We know constituencies always complain when they fall to the budget axe, and constructive criticism is often hard to come by in tough times.
But the proposal to make these cuts in the name of fiscal responsibility is not honest. Compared to our country's massive deficit, these and other cuts to domestic programs amount to a small drop in the bucket. By contrast, the proposal foresees essentially no cuts to defense, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which together account for more than 60 percent of the federal budget. Add in other things that cannot or will not be cut — like interest on the debt — and the vast majority of the budget is apparently off-limits. But you cannot squeeze blood from a stone. These misguided efforts to balance the budget solely by cutting domestic spending in areas like science and education cannot do the job.
Yet these token cuts that essentially amount to a rounding error in the grand scheme of things will ravage the areas they affect. For example, the proposal's plan to cut 30 percent from the Department of Energy's Office of Science, which funds basic scientific research, will undoubtedly have seriously negative effects on students, universities and our nation's competitiveness in research and scientific advancement. Like the similarly large cuts to the National Institute of Health, these reductions will significantly diminish federal grants and cripple academic programs at universities throughout the country.
Also, the elimination of AmeriCorps and Teach for America will hurt the students that take advantage of those programs and the underprivileged who benefit from them. Huge cuts elsewhere in the proposal will have similarly negative effects on education, transportation and energy, among other areas.
We have already seen the dangers of cuts like these at the state level. In California and Washington, for example, the financial crisis busted state budgets and forced devastating cuts in state aid for those states' world-class public universities that resulted in double-digit percentage increases in class size and tuition.
We understand that there will need to be cuts, even to important programs, to get our nation's fiscal house in order. But these cuts should be pursued responsibly, fully mindful of the serious impact they will have on those they affect. Everyone should share in the pain that balancing the budget will require. And funding for science and colleges should not be slashed to make a symbolic point.
Editorials are written by The Herald's editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
