National debt will make the United States a second-rate power

A half-dozen or so groups have tried to snap Congress into tackling the growing national debt. The latest entrant, unveiled Monday, is a bipartisan effort led by an all-star cast of political elders.

Inaction, they warned, will make the United States a second-rate power within a generation or two, as mounting debt payments overtake any potential government revenue.

But obstacles remain, mirroring those in Congress itself.

There's no agreement on the right combination of tax hikes and spending cuts. Some think that raising taxes should not be considered at all. And there's no way to force actual lawmakers or the White House to follow their advice.

This much is certain, though.

"Sacrifice is going to be built into this," said former Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., former chairman of the Senate budget committee.

Domenici will co-chair the task force created by the Bipartisan Policy Center, one of a half-dozen or more high-profile efforts aimed at pressuring Congress to confront the nation's record-setting $12 trillion debt.

There were few words of reassurance that these solutions would be simple or politically palatable.

"Raising taxes causes real pain. Cutting spending, especially entitlement benefits that people have counted on, will cause real pain," said co-chairwoman Alice Rivlin, the Clinton-era budget director.

But such steps – in some combination that so far has eluded policymakers – will be required, because the explosion of debt is unsustainable, she said.

"It's fantasy. We couldn't borrow that much money. No one would lend it to us. And the interest rates that we would have to pay would sink our economy," she said.

The Senate will vote today on whether to create a bipartisan task force empowered to devise ways to tackle the national debt. President Barack Obama has embraced the idea. He has also considered creating a panel of his own, though such an entity would not be able to force lawmakers into voting on a package of tax hikes and spending cuts.

But many conservatives view the president's call for a commission as a smokescreen for a tax-raising agenda.

On Monday, Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Dallas, a leading fiscal conservative, derided Obama as a "spendaholic" in search of political cover.

"It seems to me that the president is really saying, 'Quick, stop me before I spend again,' " he told Fox News. "What we really need is a spending commission, not a deficit commission. The deficit is the symptom. It's spending that's the disease."

Domenici said that for his commission and for Congress itself, everything, including tax increases, must be on the table. But even some of his own commission members don't buy that.

"Conservatives like me would never agree that tax increases should be on the table," said Frank Keating, a former GOP governor of Oklahoma.

Keating said he would welcome an overhaul of the tax code, perhaps shifting from income taxes to service and sales taxes. He tried without success to enact such a change when he was governor from 1995 to 2003.

Federal debt levels are attracting alarm from several quarters and could be a hot election year issue.

The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation joined forces in December to publish a report called "Red Ink Rising" urging the government to begin reducing the debt by 2012.

Earlier this month, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences completed a two-year study called "Choosing the Nation's Fiscal Future" that suggested four ways to start reducing the debt.

These and other studies have all warned that economic growth will not be enough to fund government programs and start reducing the debt.

The Domenici-Rivlin team, mindful of the politics, vows to release its report this year, but not until after the November elections.

"We're beyond the level of frustration," said former Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle. He warned that debt payments will soon crowd out spending on education, health care and various entitlements.

"We're nearing the level of fear."