To close the fiscal deficit, we need to close our leadership deficit

The only way to solve this problem is for the president and Congress to first educate the American people about the urgency of the problem, and then outline the shared sacrifices and hard choices that will be necessary to put us on a sustainable path. Everything has to be on the table. No one can protect their sacred cows. As a member of the President’s Debt Commission, I voted to force Congress to at least debate a plan that would lower tax rates, close tax loopholes, cut discretionary spending, and reform Social Security. The plan included many elements I did not favor. Yet, it was a serious blueprint that would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion through 2020…

It’s true that our debt crisis is mostly an entitlement crisis, but Congress will never have the credibility to deal with entitlements until we make serious cuts to discretionary spending. If earmarks have been Congress’ gateway drug to spending addiction, discretionary spending has been its ecstasy. In other words, I’ve always believed getting to entitlement reform required securing other strategic objectives along the way.

David Brooks offered an interesting argument last week about the connection between discretionary spending and entitlement reform. We may not share precisely the same strategy, but he made this important point: ‘If people who care about this or that domestic program fight alone, hoping that their own program will be spared, then they will all perish alone. If they have any chance of continuing their work, they will have to band together and fight their common enemy, the inexorable growth of entitlement spending.’