On one level, I feel like a lot of Washington pundits who just want to see some sign that the government can function, and a budget deal between Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) will be welcome regardless of the details. Yet, the details do matter, and some deals are worse than no deal at all.
Someone pointed out to me the other day that it’s ridiculous to talk about the federal government being broke just because it is in serious debt when it holds massive amounts of wealth in land, minerals, and equipment. A person who owed trillions of dollars to creditors would be unlikely to have 650 million acres of land to sell, let alone the massive stores of military equipment held by the Pentagon.
And, of course, this is how the Republicans want to fund the government. They want to sell off its assets.
There is broad agreement that a portion of the sequester should be replaced with targeted spending cuts. But Democrats demand revenues in the mix and Republicans categorically reject new taxes. So to thread that needle, sources familiar with the negotiations say, Murray and Ryan are weighing revenues in the form of asset sales and government fees, rather than Democrats’ preference for raising revenue by scaling back tax loopholes.
So, because the Republicans cannot agree to raise taxes, even by doing away with senseless tax giveaways, we must sell off the government’s assets. We can certainly afford to do so, at least for a while. But, once we start down that road, it won’t be too long before we really are broke.