Spending control

With the Baby Boomers about to retire en masse, insolvency for the nation’s massive redistributionist entitlement schemes is no longer a distant threat.

The Medicare hospital trust fund will be exhausted by 2017. Thanks to the dismal economy, Social Security has already begun — at least temporarily — to pay out more than it takes in. And the Congressional Budget Office estimates that debt held by the public should exceed 61 percent of GDP by the end of this year and 68 percent by 2019. At that point, government interest payments will start to resemble an “interest-only mortgage.”

What to do?

This week the Senate is expected to vote on a brazen proposal to create a powerful bipartisan commission charged with making “deficit-cutting recommendations.” Members of Congress would then have to vote the recommendations up or down without any amendment — similar to the system that finally allowed Congress to close superfluous military bases over the parochial objections of local congressmen.

The plan was co-sponsored by 30 senators from both parties. But its prospects of receiving the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate are reportedly dim.

Good. Republicans should have no part in such a scheme, unless the empowering legislation specifically and firmly directs that no tax hikes or other “revenue enhancements” — on anyone — can be considered or included.

Federal finances are not in trouble because Americans don’t pay enough taxes. They pay more than ever before. Only spending reductions and eventual, systematic entitlement reform should be on the table.

Providing they boldly promote true tax-cutting, slashing the size of the intrusive federal bureaucracy and a return to much smaller, balanced budgets, Republicans are in line to make sizeable gains in both houses come November. Why throw that away to participate in some scheme to give cover to big-spending, tax-hiking Democrats?