Event Summary
America continues to borrow large sums of money from foreign countries, leaving a legacy of debt to the next generation. With the 2008 primary season on the horizon and congressional Democrats and President Bush finally talking about fiscal responsibility, finding common ground between Republicans and Democrats on budget issues could not be more important.
Event Information
When
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
9:30 AM to 11:00 AM
Where
Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Map
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On February 7, Brookings hosted a discussion with a distinguished panel of experts who offered their bipartisan plan of spending cuts and revenue enhancements to balance the budget in the next five years, and set the nation on a sustainable fiscal course for the long run. Participants included G. William Hoagland, former director of budget and appropriations for former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.); Charles Stenholm, former Member of Congress from Texas; and Isabel Sawhill, a Brookings senior fellow. David Wessel, deputy bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, moderated the panel discussion.
The bipartisan plan was written by Hoagland, Stenholm, Sawhill, and William Frenzel, Brookings guest scholar and a former member of Congress from Minnesota. Through the Institution's Budgeting for National Priorities Project, Sawhill has led several experts in exploring the question of why budget deficits matter and offering solutions for how elected officials can close the gap.
Transcript
BELLE SAWHILL: We understand that compromises are needed and so we thought maybe we could suggest one way you could get to where we need to be fiscally, and that it both suggest some ideas and also be something of a model for what needs to happen in the real political world.
I am going to focus on what we do to get to balance over the next 5 years, but I want to really emphasize right up front something that Charlie just alluded to which is the entitlement programs that really need to be addressed over the longer-term. I like the way Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Fed puts it: he says this is just the calm before the storm; after all, deficits are not that large right now particularly as a share of the economy, and I suspect we will see some more good news in the short-term, but you go out a couple of decades and the storm comes. I think to deal with the storm we need to batten down the hatches now. We need to get ready for it and, therefore, the goal of making progress over the next 5 years is an important one. We propose a plan for the next 5 years that is about half spending cuts and about half revenue increases.
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Participants
Moderator
David Wessel
Deputy Bureau Chief, Wall Street Journal
Panelists
Charles Stenholm
Former Representative, (D-Texas)
G. William Hoagland
Former Director of Budget and Appropriations, Office of Senator Bill Frist (R-TN)
Senior Fellow, Economic Studies