Appetite unchecked

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MARY REICHARD, HOST:  Congress is once again staring down a funding deadline. The government is scheduled for shutdown on January 30 if lawmakers cannot reach a deal.

Immigration is one of the flashpoints. But the fight has also reopened a broader argument over federal spending, taxes, and the national debt.

Commentary now from WORLD’s Cal Thomas.

CAL THOMAS: Mitt Romney says he's worried about the future of the country.

In a recent letter to The Wall Street Journal, the former Republican presidential nominee writes that he’s open to higher taxes. His argument is that adding to the national debt faster than the economy grows “can’t go on forever.”

Well that's true, but Romney is only half right. Because he’s wrong about the cause.

Consider this: The United States government is taking in record revenue. Tariff collections are up. Income tax receipts are near historic highs. Federal revenue now exceeds five trillion dollars a year.

And yet the national debt is approaching forty trillion dollars. Now that tells you something.

This is not a revenue problem, it’s a spending problem. And it’s not a new one.

In April of 1985, President Ronald Reagan addressed the nation about deficits and debt. His warning takes on added importance today:

REAGAN: The simple truth is, no matter how hard you work, no matter how strong this economy grows, no matter how much more tax money comes to Washington, it won’t amount to a hill of beans if government won’t curb its endless appetite to spend.

Reagan’s point was simple: raising taxes without controlling spending only feeds the appetite.

REAGAN: They talk as if spending were all giving and no taking. Well, there is no magic money machine. Every dollar the government spends comes out of your pockets.

That was true forty years ago. It’s still true today—and it explains exactly where we are.

Because despite these record revenues, Congress continues to spend more and borrow more. Cutting even the rate of growth is treated as cruelty. Fraud and waste are defended as necessities.

Meanwhile, tens of millions of Americans receive some form of government assistance—which helps explain why spending restraint is politically radioactive.

Human nature hasn’t changed. The more people rely on government, the harder it becomes to say no. That's why Romney’s closing line matters. He writes that he is “more concerned about the future of the country than the size of my tax bill.”

But that’s the false choice. Before Washington takes another dollar—from Mitt Romney or from you or me—it should do what Ronald Reagan demanded forty years ago: curb its appetite to spend.

Romney might profit from watching that speech. So might the rest of Congress.

For WORLD, I’m Cal Thomas.

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