Man in the middle: Steve LaTourette gets serious about deficit reduction
Friday, November 18, 2011
Man in the middle: Steve LaTourette gets serious
about deficit reduction
Akron Beacon Journal Editorial
Count Steve LaTourette as the one Ohio member of the U.S. House
with the good sense to sign a letter calling on the Joint Select
Committee on Deficit Reduction to "go big" in pursuing fiscal
discipline. The Bainbridge Township Republican joined a bipartisan
collection of 100 colleagues in urging the supercommittee to put
all options on the table, including tax increases.
That puts LaTourette at odds with his own promise to uphold the
"taxpayer protection pledge" of Americans for Tax Reform, the
influential outfit led by Grover Norquist. Yet, as LaTourette
points out, he signed the pledge almost two decades ago. Much has
change in the meantime, starting with the national debt now
exceeding $14 trillion.
In taking this stance, LaTourette places himself in the
responsible middle of the political spectrum. Two distinguished
bipartisan commissions have looked at the deficit challenge, one
headed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the other led by Alice
Rivlin and Pete Domenici, and each has recommended a mix of
spending reductions and tax increases, the Rivlin-Domenici panel
proposing a split of 50-50.
In lowering the country's credit rating last summer, Standard
& Poor's highlighted the dysfunction in Washington, the Capitol
crowd seemingly at a loss about how to bridge differences and begin
to put the country's financial house in order for the long run. The
unproductive polarization plainly has been at work with the
supercommittee.
In that way, the letter from LaTourette and the other House
members carries a refreshing quality. Perhaps there is a way to do
the obvious right thing, a combination of tax increases and
spending cuts that puts the deficit on a steady downward path,
marching past the supercommittee goal of $1.2 trillion in deficit
reduction during the next decade, to a sum in the neighborhood of
$4 trillion, Washington showing it can do the job.
Published on 11-17-2011.