WASHINGTON —
The Concord Coalition’s President,
Peter G. Peterson, will
testify before the U.S. House Committee on
Financial Services today.
WASHINGTON —
The Concord Coalition’s President,
Peter G. Peterson, will
testify before the U.S. House Committee on
Financial Services today.
Peterson will review the grave
deterioration in the budget outlook over the past two years and the long-term
injury resurgent deficits threaten to inflict on the economy and on future
generations. He will then turn to the arguments the administration has made in
favor of its tax plan and why he does not find many of them particularly
persuasive.
Excerpts from the
testimony:
“A future of mounting deficits is a cause for grave concern.
Mounting deficits can slow and even halt the steady growth in material living
standards that has always nourished the American Dream. When such deficits are
incurred in order to fund a rising transfer from young to old, they also
constitute an injustice against future generations.
“Are we meeting our generational obligations? One has to worry
when we embrace a policy of endlessly rising deficits. This policy, after all,
constitutes an explicit decision by today’s adults to collectively shift the
current cost of government from themselves to their children and grandchildren.
“There is no public finance textbook that teaches that you can
ease the long-term tax burden simply by cutting the tax. Instead of pretending
it can accomplish the impossible, the administration should be educating the
public that, when you face a future of endless deficits, you have to cut
spending long term before you cut taxes long term.
“I want to be very clear on this point. Neither I nor The
Concord Coalition opposes smaller government or lower taxes. We simply require
that, at the end of the day, revenues are sufficient to cover outlays.
Washington policymakers must not pretend that we can have it all — guns
and butter AND tax cuts.”
The
full text of the testimony is
available on The Concord Coalition’s website:
/fedbudget/old-doc/030430petersontestimony.html
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