February 12, 2025
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Delegation seeks long-term solutions as national debt grows

AUGUSTA – Each man, woman and child in Maine owes nearly $31,000 as their share of the national debt that is increasing every week by more than the entire state budget for a year.

“It’s a serious problem now and it is growing worse every day,” said 2nd District Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine. “I think it is incumbent on Congress and the next administration to really focus on bringing the budget back in line. It’s not going to happen overnight, but we have to start.”

Michaud, a member of the “Blue Dog” conservative caucus of House Democrats, said he is very impressed with the warning issued by recently retired Government Accountability Office director David Walker that the nation cannot afford the huge federal debt that is growing.

“It is not the short term that is the concern, we can handle that,” Walker told Congress earlier this year. “It is the future debt.”

Walker warns the current $9.2 trillion debt is on track to swell to $44 trillion, a number so huge it is hard to grasp.

“We can’t let it get that big,” Michaud said. “We have to be strict with the pay-go rules we adopted earlier this year and we have to end the war.”

The pay-go rules require any new program or additional funding for an existing program be offset by cuts in other programs or new revenues.

Michaud said the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has not been paid for, but has been added to the deficit. Unlike Maine, which must balance its budget, the federal government can and does spend more than it raises in revenue.

“In every one of our financial endeavors, we have to begin to think of how are we going to pay for it. Where are we going to find the offsets?” said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. “This is central to our future because of the mounting debt, and that has contributed to the eroding value of our dollar.”

She said there are budget negotiations under way now to set the parameters of the federal budget that will be considered later this year. She said that while some in Congress recognize the need to reduce the deficit, others do not.

“I think it is important to look at repealing some of the tax breaks of the oil companies,” Snowe said. “With the record, astronomical profits, they do not need tax breaks.”

She said the nation cannot continue to charge the costs of the war as well as other programs on the “national credit card” and expect the deficit to decrease.

First District Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, said the huge increase in the national debt is because President Bush “pushed through tax cuts for the superwealthy” and refused to provide ways to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We should have been paying for the war all along,” he said. “The same people that were the most hawkish on the war were the same people that cut the taxes on the most wealthy of our taxpayers.”

Allen said there are times that deficit spending is warranted. He said the stimulus checks are aimed at boosting the economy and it would not make sense to raise taxes to pay for the stimulus effort.

“Under this president, we have seen the most fiscally irresponsible time in American history,” he said. “It has to stop.”

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said that if the full Congress approves the effort she has pushed in the Senate Armed Services Committee to require the Iraqi government to pay for a greater share of the costs of the war, it will be a significant savings.

“This will save billions of dollars as we shift costs,” she said. “They are seeing a huge windfall as oil prices have soared, and they should pay more of the costs.”

But, Collins said, that is only part of the solution. She said the Farm Bill, which passed last week over her objections, includes “billions” in subsidies to farmers, in some cases, to not grow food.

“We cannot continue these subsidies that are causing food shortages,” she said. “It just does not make any sense.”

Michaud said Congress will have an opportunity to match their rhetoric with steps to reduce the deficit as the various spending bills are considered. He said he will oppose any efforts to undercut the pay-go rules and he hopes other lawmakers will as well.


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