CAMPAIGN MUST INCLUDE REVIEW OF U.S. SPENDING

Dr. K.P.S. Kamath is a Cape Girardeau psychiatrist.

What is the nature of this nation's malaise? Examining this question is a curious study. America is at peace, and the its most formidable adversary of the latter part of this century the Soviet Union has been disbanded. While the country is suffering an economic downturn, it has recently enjoyed a decade of enormous growth. Despite these advances, citizens properly sense a breakdown in some institutions, primarily government. If government is a problem, persons hoping to be a part of it are duty-bound to speak to the issue in their campaigns. We haven't heard enough of it.

To his credit, U.S. Sen. Christopher Bond shows a willingness to do so. He was in Cape Girardeau last week outlining a formula that "conventional wisdom" would announce as a campaign liability he wants to pull back the reins on government programs. Bond insists that government officials are deceiving Americans by not addressing mammoth and growing federal budget deficits. What he is talking about as a solution is pain, the pain from which something good is achieved. Still, pain isn't a topic that plays well on the campaign trail ... or so the "experts" believe.

What Bond suggests as a way of rebounding from this year's $367 billion budget deficit is:

Reducing defense spending by a third over the next five years;

Freezing domestic and international programs at 1992 levels for five years;

Capping growth of total entitlement spending;

Thinning out the civilian federal workforce by five percent;

And cutting funding of Congress by 25 percent over two years and freezing it at that level.

Social Security would remain intact. Taxes would not increase. This plan could have holes in it, but at least it speaks to the problem: government spends too much money.

The stakes are high. If the federal government maintains the status quo (in other words, its sloppy fiscal management), the nation's budget deficit could escalate to $1 trillion annually by 2010. Bond refers to this as "fiscal Armageddon." The description is apt. Parents in this nation ideally want a better future for their offspring. They won't provide it until they demand that the federal government (and governments at all levels, for that matter) show accountability for careless spending habits.

The time is right for this case to be stated. Americans have identified Congress not as the solution, but part of the problem. Bond is again asking voters to make him part of the process, but he wants the process to be something he's proud of. The senator also has a young child, and Bond knows the inability of government to make tough decisions today will weigh heavily on the generation of his son. The tough issues must be talked about. The toughest is the government's inability to manage money. Americans are ready for this debate, and there is no better place for it than the campaign trail this fall.