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Thirty years ago, one of us was the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, the other chaired the Democratic Budget Group, a coalition of fiscally conservative legislators. At the time, we were alarmed by a $310 billion budget deficit and a national debt that was just over half the size of the entire economy. But those fiscal challenges look like mere puddles when compared to today's ocean of deficits and debt.
We came together back then, as a Democrat and a Republican, to set partisanship aside and put everything on the table. Our plan, the Penny-Kasich Deficit Reduction Amendment, proposed bold steps to rein in federal spending. The Penny-Kasich plan made tough choices about capping defense and nondefense spending while also proposing savings in Medicare—which was just as much of a political third rail in 1993 as it is now. While our plan fell four votes short of passing, it was able to garner notable support from both parties of Congress.
Going against our party leadership and crafting a bipartisan compromise was considered unthinkable at the time. But not only was it what we were sent to Washington to do, it was also the right thing to do. Our bipartisan work accelerated the conversation around deficit reduction. President Bill Clinton responded with a deficit-reducing plan of his own, and later in the decade one of us—no longer a ranking member but chair of the House Budget Committee—helped forge a bipartisan agreement to balance the budget.
The lesson from our experience is this: it is critical that members from both parties work together to find solutions that will get the nation's unsustainable fiscal problems under control. We know it will not be easy—but it can be done because it has been done before.
Record budget deficits at the time is what brought us together 30 years ago. Sadly, today the deficit is more than four times larger than it was then. The budget deficit this fiscal year is projected to be an eye-popping $1.4 trillion. That is on top of $3 trillion in deficit spending in both 2020 and 2021 due to measures enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Annual deficits are expected to grow larger and larger over the coming years, until topping $2 trillion by 2030. Worse, next year the national debt will exceed the size of the entire U.S. economy and in five years will surpass the record as a share of the economy set in the wake of World War II.
Already, we are feeling the economic effects of our fiscal failures. Inflation is at a 40-year high as the Federal Reserve squeezes the economy to get inflation under control. Continued congressional inaction on fiscal matters will result in even higher interest rates and slower economic growth.
How to proceed? The first step is to write a budget. The president has already done that—even though it was a month late and well short of what is needed. But it is now time for the House and Senate Budget Committees to do their part. Under the Constitution, Congress has the power of the purse. Both parties in both chambers need to deliver a budget spelling out tax and spending policies designed to reduce deficits and grow the economy.
While there will be differences in these budget blueprints—the Republican House and the Democratic Senate have an obligation to draft a budget and then negotiate.
There is one thing, though, that the president and the Congress need to address sooner rather than later—and that is the future of Social Security and Medicare. According to the recent report from the Social Security and Medicare Trustees, the trust funds that both programs need to pay benefits will be insolvent by the end of a decade. Under current law, that means that all current and future beneficiaries will see both stark benefit cuts and threats to their access to care. That is not acceptable. We cannot leave these programs "off the books," as President Biden stated during his State of the Union speech. Perhaps a bipartisan commission, like the one endorsed by Congressional leaders and President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, (when we both served in Congress) could be a way forward in helping Americans understand the need for reform to save these vitally important programs before it is too late.
In recent years, somehow, bipartisanship has become a dirty word in Washington. When we served together in the 1980s and 1990s, we checked our party labels at the door. We sat down together and hashed out a compromise. It was not always easy, but that is the job of governing. Our bipartisan effort in the early 1990s set the stage for another bipartisan compromise that balanced the budget and contributed to economic prosperity. That must be the same goal today. With a Republican House and a Democrat Senate, bipartisanship is the only way forward.
John R. Kasich (R) served as Ohio governor, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and was chief architect of the effort to balance the federal budget for the first time since 1969.
Timothy Penny (D) represented Minnesota's First Congressional District from 1982-1994 and chaired the Democratic Budget Group as well as the Porkbusters Coalition. Both are members of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
