Voters need leaders who understand breadth of issues we face

The tortured federal budget process is almost complete under the first year of the Trump presidency, except the fight over the Department of Homeland Security budget, testing whether Democrats can force changes in the way that ICE operates.

With slim Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, we continued to pay the rising interest payments on our debt, increased the defense budget slightly, added a generous tax deduction to Social Security, and maintained Medicare spending, per the president’s campaign promises.

What was interesting is that the president proposed about $170 billion in cuts to non-defense discretionary spending, which, in total, comprises about 14% of the federal budget, and he did not get it, despite the Republican caucus’s almost slavish obedience. In some areas — housing subsidies — the Congress authorized significant increases.

Yes, the One Big Beautiful Bill made cuts to Medicaid and pushed through an extension of the Trump tax cuts, which favor the wealthy and corporations. However, the federal budget, with a couple of exceptions, looks very much the same as it did under President Biden’s final year, despite GOP control of the White House and both houses of Congress.

For those keeping score, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the federal government will run a deficit of between $1.7 and $1.9 trillion in the coming year, despite increased (but uncertain) tariff revenue as the U.S. approaches a federal debt of 100% of our GDP.

That brings me to the upcoming primaries for federal offices — House and Senate. I have been going through the web sites of the candidates and it is almost a cliché. Republicans vow to get federal spending under control and trot out that echo from the Reagan administration, “fraud, waste and abuse.” Democrats promise to tax billionaires. Boring.

It’s true, taxing the wealthy always polls well. In an era of growing inequality where the top one percent in America control almost 32% of the nation’s wealth (about $55 trillion) and the so-called K-shaped economy (those at the top continue to do well and those at the bottom not so much) causes increasing discontent, we are seeing more strident populist messages on the left.

In New York, Mayor Mamdani is proposing a two percent tax on incomes over $1 million and in California Bernie Sanders is pushing a five percent tax on wealth over $1 billion that will be settled by referendum. However, the threat is that wealthy individuals and corporations will flee those states, as President Trump did when he decamped to Florida in 2019. We’ve seen that dynamic in Illinois.

Some of the candidates in the primaries do mentioning shoring up Social Security. They just don’t say how. To remind:

The combined Social Security Trust Funds are projected to be depleted in 2034. If no action is taken by Congress, 81% of benefits would be payable at that time. The Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund is projected to be exhausted by 2033. At that point, the fund is expected to have enough revenue to pay 89% of benefits.

Given the size of the problem, serious people understand that an all-of-the-above strategy is necessary. First, do what you can to promote growth. Tariffs, cutting R&D, shutting down immigration, and general chaos don’t help. On taxes, some increases are probably unavoidable, but allowing a tax code to be gamed by the wealthiest will make it harder to sell those increases to the middle class. Fairness matters because just hitting the rich is not enough. Finally, oversight, procurement reform, entitlement reform, and finding ways to control medical costs might bend the growth curve of federal spending.

It’s not rocket science — just hard work, tough choices, and leadership.

• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.