Sen. Mark Warner, a fiscal cliff prediction and a failure to find the true causes of our debt

In an interview given to WDBJ7, Senator Mark Warner (VA) stated that he believes there’s an 80 percent chance lawmakers will reach an agreement on a budget deal that will forestall the so-called “fiscal cliff”[1] even after he conceded that he was not “in that room” where the budget negotiations were taking place between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner. Why not 82.3 percent Sen. Warner, why settle for 80 percent?

Regardless of Warner’s mysterious prediction, the budgetary crisis has put ambitious politicians like Sen. Warner in a bit of pickle. Warner’s Democratic base in Virginia has urged him to safeguard America’s social safety net. While Warner has publicly stated that Social Security and Medicare should be available 20 years from now (which doesn’t do individuals my age much good), he has also strongly hinted that the eventual budgetary cuts will affect America’s social safety programs.

Sounding like a politician from the Republican Party, Warner commented, “The idea that a program or a tax break suddenly has to be off the table, that’s how we go into this 16-trillion-dollar debt to start with.”[2]

However, it wasn’t that long ago that the federal deficit was completely erased.[3] So what has happened over the last decade or so that has driven America’s debt so sky-high?

While America’s social safety programs and their growing costs have certainly been a factor, two concurrent and financially draining wars along with the so-called “Bush tax cuts” have also played an important, if not more significant, role in spiraling America’s debt.[4]

Thus, America has reached $16 trillion in debt, not because “a program or a tax break suddenly has to be off the table.” Rather, America has built such a mountain of debt because politicians like Sen. Warner are willing to trade facts as quickly as they are willing to shrug off political responsibility and integrity if these virtues and political ambition do not align.

The American people expected more and kept getting less from their public representatives and now they are the only ones left to foot the bill.

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[1] http://www.wdbj7.com/news/wdbj7-chance-of-avoiding-fiscal-cliff-80-percent-says-warner-20121211,0,3168325.story

[2] http://www.wdbj7.com/news/wdbj7-chance-of-avoiding-fiscal-cliff-80-percent-says-warner-20121211,0,3168325.story

[3] http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

[4] http://theweek.com/article/index/217524/what-caused-the-national-debt-6-culprits