Overseas Splashes: Wisdom Deficit

The four stitches that adorned Boyko Borisov’s forehead after a football game last week reminded me of the reactions here to another politician’s injury in the heat of a sports battle. After falling victim to an elbow in basketball at the end of November, Barack Obama’s chin [lip] was patched with 12 stitches. It was with obvious effort that the American president opened his mouth that week when he had to speak. Then accusations arose from both the right and the left: The president was too fond of the ball. It was not serious — almost childish, they’d say — to play basketball so often when there were so many more important things to do.

Clearly — since it is used quite a lot in politics — the accusation of childishness is a very effective evasive technique. In the U.S., for example, the statement “let’s speak like adults” is thrown at one’s opponents in all sorts of situations. At the moment, it is directed at the difficult decisions of where and how much to cut spending for next year — a very “adult” topic of conversation. The president’s draft budget for 2012, presented last Monday, proposes a record budget deficit of $1.6 trillion ($1,600 billion). No kidding. Obama outlined a series of measures to reduce the national debt by 10 percent over the next decade. While this may not seem radical, it will reverse the trend of the last 10 years — provided that the measures pass through the legislative sieve.

Some of Obama’s budget priorities irritated members of his own party. Democrats disapproved of his plans to freeze or cut funding for 500 federal programs related to education, the environment and social benefits. The more extreme among them even accused Obama of treason, conveniently forgetting that their party lost its majority in the House of Representatives in November and must now fully comply with those in power.

In turn, Republicans stated that the president had done nothing substantial to reduce government spending. Their leaders constantly emphasize the record size of the deficit, manipulatively ignoring the fact that this is in part due to Obama’s concession to them in December to maintain tax cuts for those earning over $250,000 annually. The discrepancy between the two U.S. political parties in assessing the very same act is so wide right now that one might wonder if they even read the same newspapers.

Of course, both the Republicans and Democrats are, in fact, genuinely worried about their country’s growing debt, but neither dares to openly tell their respective voters that the only way to reduce the deficit is through painful budget cuts and higher taxes (or through the abolition of some popular fiscal incentives). Sooner or later, Americans will have to accept reductions in Social Security payments, along with reforms to Medicare and Medicaid. Though the U.S. has a younger population and higher birth rates than Europe, it cannot avoid the same fate toward which Europe’s pension systems are heading.

Let’s not forget the Pentagon’s astronomical annual budget of about $700 billion, which includes spending on Iraq and Afghanistan. Military spending has increased by nearly 70 percent in the last decade. No kidding. Though Obama will cut some of it ($78 billion in five years), he will not significantly reduce it. Deficit or not, the U.S. military budget will remain as large as that of the next 20 countries combined.

I think that both Obama and Borisov would agree that a few facial stitches are preferable to the lengthy battle that must be fought with both friends and foes whenever it comes to money. I wish both a speedy recovery and much wisdom when it comes to the national treasury.