Federal mandates gobble up budgets, add debt

In an explanatory article in USA Today, Gene Steuerle, a Richard B. Fisher Fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., pointed out that Congress has piled up massive mandatory expenses over many decades.

Generation after generation of lawmakers have committed almost all government revenues to "mandatory programs" - those whose funding and funding growth are set by past laws - and interest on the debt.

The result is that the entire mass of revenue accumulated each year by the United States is already spoken for. That means that any other necessary or worthwhile programs must be paid for out of additional indebtedness. It's an unforgiving, unendurable credit-card system.

A chart accompanying the article graphically displays how in 1962 Congress had about 60% of federal revenues to appropriate for needed expenditures. But the descending line has now plunged to 6.5% below zero.

"No more annual appropriations are needed to fuel this vicious cycle. On our current path, Rip Van Congress could take a 50-year snooze, and the entire budget (and then some!) would still be spoken for. Tax revenues would be raised with economic growth, but not as fast as spending and deficits," Steuerle wrote.

"Why is trying to control the future this way such bad economics? Imagine a business signing 50- and 100-year contracts that tied up all the hoped-for future revenues. It can't foresee the future well enough to make those commitments, and it would miss out on opportunities to use the money more wisely," the author said.

He said that for the first time in U.S. history, in 2009 every single dollar of revenue was committed before Congress voted on any spending program.

"Meanwhile, most of the government's basic functions - from justice to education to turning on the lights in the Capitol - are paid for out of swelling unsustainable deficits," he wrote.

It's wholly reprehensible that near-sighted members of Congress have plunged this nation into below-freezing financial waters.

Is there now - or has there ever - been intelligent life in Congress?

There must be some strong damage control to rescind those in-perpetuity mandates that are crushing this and future generations of taxpayers.

To make matters worse, the federal lawmakers have loaded enormous unfunded mandates onto the backs of all our 50 states.

The states, in turn, mandate inappropriate, unfunded programs on counties and cities as the dominoes tumble on top of hard-working or unemployed citizens.

If our legislators are worth their lucrative salaries and perks, they must reverse this dangerous trend this year and in the future.

It's time to put reason and common sense back into our broken government now and evermore.