Saturday, March 31, 2012

What Does ‘Fiscal Responsibility’ Mean?

“Fiscal responsibility” is a catch-phrase that seemingly no politician can do without. The White House used “fiscal responsibility” to name a summit meeting, a bipartisan national commission, and one of their webpages. House Democrats named “fiscal responsibility” as a top priority; so did Senate Republicans. An entire Senate subcommittee was named after it. “Fiscal responsibility” was reportedly what the Tea Party counterculture was all about. Rick Santorum is for it; Romney is too.
In short, everybody is for it, nobody is against it. Every politician who has an interest in getting elected or reelected must stake a claim to the virtuous mantle of “fiscal responsibility.” But despite the near-universal popularity of the catch-phrase, there lingers a nagging question: What, exactly, does “fiscal responsibility” mean?
Opinions are diverse. To some, it means paying down the federal debt. To others, it means balancing the federal budget. Wrong, says another group, it means keeping the debt at a sustainable level in relation to the size of the economy. Wrong, wrong, wrong, says an emerging school of thought: it’s not about deficits and debt, it’s about outcomes, it means doing what it takes to sustain the world leadership role of the U.S. dollar and economy.

Read more: http://www.american.com/archive/2012/march/what-does-fiscal-responsibility-mean

No comments: