LITTLE ROCK — Two mornings after the big election, I got invited to visit with a small group of politically keen senior adults—a kind of coffee club, I suppose, composed of 15 or so—that appeared to lean a little to the amiable right.
By that I mean that, while a majority were of a Republican persuasion, these local folks were, by and large, neither extreme nor strident—or even very peeved. After all, they invited me to come by.
One of them introduced me as the “Pied Piper of Hillcrest,” a reference to my deep-blue midtown neighborhood where President Barack Obama and Herb Rule and medical marijuana ran strong.
The fellow, a friend who aligns with me on governmental-ethics issues, was partly ribbing and partly deriding, though I was wholly complimented.
Of course the folks in Little Rock’s Hillcrest section don’t need anyone to follow in their liberalism. It seems to come as naturally as a jog or bike ride or stroll with the dog along Kavanaugh Boulevard.
The memorable moment of the hour’s discussion came when I said that the 15 or so of us could, in 15 minutes’ time, negotiate our way clear of the nation’s fiscal cliff. And all of them, or very nearly all of them, enthusiastically said that yes, indeed, we surely could.
The mathematical matter looks hard only because the numbers are big.
The issue actually is hard only because of the political pressures. The issue is not hard in a logical, practical, fair-minded or solutionoriented way.
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Here’s what you do: Oblige the Democrats and let the Bush tax cuts expire for high incomes, putting the top rate back at 39 percent where it was when people got richer in the go-go Clinton ’90s. It won’t hurt a soul. And the Democrats won the election, after all. Find a few tax deductions to end or cap, and maybe even invite a touch of middle-class sacrifice by reducing or capping the mortgage-interest deduction.
Take the Simpson-Bowles deficitreduction report and adopt $4 trillion worth of its proposed debt-reduction over 10 years.
That could include limiting doctors’ reimbursements on Medicare; adding to Medicare co-payments; reducing all discretionary spending, including for defense, to the levels of 2008; and, for good measure and for savings beyond 10 years, adding an element of means-testing to Social Security by which higher-income people would get reduced benefits.
You also could gradually increase the Social Security retirement age in accordance with life-expectancy changes, probably to age 69 by 2075.
A person could still take retirement at 62 if in great need, but only at half-pay.
That actually didn’t take even 15 minutes.
You have successfully required a fairer and greater contribution from the well-to-do. You have required a modest sacrifice from the middle class.
You have made needed structural changes to stave off Medicare’s bankruptcy.
For good measure, you have shored up Social Security’s longerterm solvency.
So why can’t we simply get that done in Washington?
It’s because Republicans, particularly the ones in the House elected every two years, are paralyzed by fear of the Grover Norquist/Club for Growth right flank that demands fealty to the rich and no increase in anybody’s taxes.
It’s because President Obama and congressional Democrats are emboldened by the election. They are convinced that the people are with them on the tax issue.
They believe they are beholden to senior citizens to protect them from serious cuts to Medicare or Social Security.
They even are mildly inclined to think it would work to their benefit if we actually went over the fiscal cliff for a week or two—but not much longer than that, for a real recession would surely follow.
Democrats also are leery of criticism from their left flank for having given in too easily to Republican obstinance once before and continuing the Bush tax cuts for high incomes.
Republicans need to rise above fear of defeat and fealty to the wealthy. Democrats need to stop taking victory laps and accept that—darnit—the GOP still has the leverage of one congressional chamber.
The looming tragedy in all this is that the one vital nudge the American economy needs right now is a responsibly functioning political system, or at least one that can work as effectively, if not necessarily as expeditiously, as our little post-election coffee club.
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John Brummett’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his blog at brummett.arkansasonline.com.
Editorial, Pages 17 on 11/29/2012