Gramm-Rudman: A Nation and Its Future Downsized

At street corners and bus stops in any American city, we’ve all seen the shell games played. Guess which shell the pea is under, they say; guess where the red card is hiding.

By passing the so-called Gramm-Rudman amendment this week, President Reagan and his allies in Congress have established a shell game of their own. They’re playing with the taxpayers’ money, and their promoters stand by asking where the responsibility to balance the budget might be hiding.

Gramm-Rudman establishes five annual targets for cutting the deficit, resulting in a balanced budget by 1991. Should Congress miss the required goal, a presidential order would trigger automatic cuts to meet the goal.

The plan itself does nothing to cut the deficit. It doesn’t raise one penny in revenue, close one tax loophole or eliminate one federal spending program. It only spells out which programs won’t be cut--hardly a courageous act--and then obliges the President or Congress to make the choices in the future.

Gramm-Rudman’s supporters claim that it merely forces Congress to “do its job right.” They say that if Congress does its job--if Congress meets the mandatory deficit-reduction targets--the President won’t need to intervene to impose across-the-board cuts.

But Congress did its job this year. It produced a budget cutting $55 billion from the deficit. But the President walked away. He rejected a Republican-sponsored proposal to reform Social Security and impose an oil-import fee.

Under Gramm-Rudman, our budgets will not just be strong medicine, but hemlock. In 1988, for example, with a budget in excess of $1.2 trillion and an available pool of $500 billion from which to cut, the amendment calls on Congress to cut $35 billion--if the economy is healthy. What happens if we have a recession in 1987? Budget cuts in 1988 required under Gramm-Rudman could then amount to $164 billion, which represents a 30% reduction in programs that can be cut under the bill. It means a 30% cut in nuclear-plant inspections, a 30% cut in salaries for the armed forces, a 30% cut for law enforcement, a 30% cut in student loans. That’s what it means for Congress to “do its job” in the real world under this fiscal straitjacket.

The effect on our national defense is particularly severe. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that to cut one dollar in defense spending the government would need to cut at least two dollars in Pentagon programs. Because of the unique nature of defense contracting, one senator has estimated that the Gramm-Rudman measure could result in a 25% reduction in total defense spending. Worse, the Reagan Administration has already declared its intention to protect nuclear weapons from reductions, leaving our conventional fighting forces and readiness accounts in real jeopardy.

The havoc of Gramm-Rudman will not be limited to the Defense Department. It prevents Congress from establishing and meeting budget priorities--such as education, training, industrial modernization and other investments in our future.

Congress has failed to realize that a balanced budget is not the sole goal of public policy. Rather, the purpose of this nation’s budget should be to strengthen this country’s economy and defense, to make America competitive again. Gramm-Rudman may well result in the death of the very programs that enhance our competitive capabilities.

The President and Congress have now established a scheme that will lead to a new form of gamesmanship within the federal government. We’ll surely see artificially high budgets, designed to embarrass the President into exercising the veto or to apply across-the-board cuts. Some programs may receive inflated budget allocations so that the originally desired level can be obtained, despite a percentage reduction.

But if our goal is a competitive economy, if our goal is national excellence, if our goal is investments in our future, then all budget cuts are not equal. But that logic is lost on Gramm-Rudman. This sham of a budget plan proposes to cut equal parts from fat and lean, from special interest and national interest, from competitive minds and protected constituencies.

If all goes according to the Gramm-Rudman plan, the future of this country will be downsized, run by a computer and reduced to a smudgy column of numbers with a zero at its end. This law deprives us of the power of choice, and substitutes a statutory auto-pilot for the congressional and presidential leadership that we sorely need.

Gramm-Rudman arose in the absence of a viable Democratic alternative, but it has taught many Democrats a lasting lesson. Those outside our party should not count on the disarray of this year to last into the next. The Republican Party may control the rules and the process. But if Gramm-Rudman is their vision, they will not control the future.