Wash. on ‘autopilot’ leads nation to disaster

Former Republican senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who was always one of the more sober, pragmatic voices on Capitol Hill, has written a piece for The Hill that warns the current system of government on “autopilot” could lead to disaster.

Gregg notes that Congressional Budget Office assumptions indicate that letting the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year and fulfilling the “sequester” budget cuts required after the supercommittee’s failure would mean a reduction in the federal debt over the next 10 years from $11 trillion to $3.7 trillion.

But Gregg cautions that a president and a Congress that fail to agree on anything during an election year will put the nation on a road to ruin, leaving us a government that neither Republicans nor Democrats want. As a result, the autopilot scenario is a fantasy, merely an unrealistic possibility that CBO must, by law, score for anticipated results.

Here’s a slice of his column:

“What CBO is suggesting is that Congress and the White House would allow for the Alternative Minimum Tax to include approximately 30 million more people than it currently does in its punitive tax bracket, for doctors to see their Medicare reimbursements reduced to the point where they would essentially be paying the government to see patients and for a jump in the (income) tax bill, not only for the richest Americans but essentially for everyone who pays income tax. Even in a time of a (sleep walking) presidency and Congress, it is difficult to believe these public policies will go forward.

“So, what is going to happen and when?

“How does a Republican House come to terms with its own self-inflicted contradictions, where it has set up a structure where taking no action leads to massive debt reduction (the stated goal of the Tea Party) through the unacceptable policy of triggering huge automatic tax increases and defense cuts?

“How does a president who is determined to grow the government in healthcare, social welfare and equitable tax policy (‘equitable’ being defined as taxing the rich and expanding the number of people who take from the government) deal with automatic actions that, if executed, make it impossible to accomplish those purposes?”

You can read the entire column here.