The meaning behind the budget numbers

The recent news about the federal budget, deficit and competing proposals returns me to my own service as a member of the budget committee in the U. S. Congress.

It was exactly 27 years ago, Ronald Reagan was president, we Democrats were the majority in the House, and we had just passed the budget for 1984 by a vote of 229-196. Senate Republicans had won the two previous elections, starting in 1980 when Reagan gained the White House. Prior to that election, the nation's debt had hovered near or well below $60 billion dollars for half a century.

With the Reagan magic, the President convinced the Senate year after year to adopt a budget very close to his proposal while rejecting those budgets that were consistently passing through the Democratic House. The result was a perfect storm of deficit-producing spending and tax policy. We Democrats insisted on protecting those dollars that funded efforts for the elderly, disabled and poor. Republicans insisted on massive historic increases in defense spending, along with record-breaking tax cuts, particularly for the rich.

Many economic experts assured the Congress and the American people that the fiscal theory of those days, called "supply side economics," would balance the budget and create an ever-expanding middle class. Significant increases in defense spending would increase jobs throughout America, and those tax cuts for the rich would greatly expand financial investments in this country. That particular tax theory was known by the apt name "trickle down."

And the result? Between 1980 and 1985, the national debt exploded from $60 billion to $305 billion. Even more critical, the number of people in the great American middle class began to crumble, and a very difficult and prolonged recession spread across the land.

Although I consistently, and without exception, voted against both trickle-down tax cuts and those large increases for the Pentagon, I did learn a few realities during my budget committee years. First, the budget is a road map plotting our nation's expectations as well as core values. It is considerably about more than numbers on a page; rather, the budget defines us as a people and determines our collective beliefs in each other.

Are we a country of 250 million people who are completely separate individuals pursuing only our own benefits, or are we somehow a great family, each concerned about the good of the whole? The national budget is not a collection of black numerals on a page; rather, it sets our choices for coming years.

I have, time and again, sat for hours in budget committee hearings and listened to the mind-numbing testimony of experts who were wise in the ways of subtraction and addition and knew the cost of everything but, seemingly, the value of nothing. Today, here in the Montana Legislature, we witness a few members of that body - green eyeshade, number-crunching bean counters - who are blind to the real effect behind the numbers with which they so enjoy juggling.

As these budget debates come down to the wire, we all need to remember there are real jobs, profits and losses, lives and children at stake out here in the real world.

Pat Williams served nine terms as a U.S. Representative from Montana. After his retirement, he returned to Montana and is teaching at the University of Montana.