SENATOR DANFORTH RESPONDS TO KINDER COLUMN ABOUT BUDGET

Editor's Note:

On December 30 and 31 of last year, Peter Kinder published a two-part open letter to Sen. John Danforth in the Southeast Missourian. Kinder's letter to the Senator analyzed Danforth's vote for the budget agreement that passed both houses of Congress late last fall after months of wrangling. Kinder was sharply critical of that agreement and of its effects on the nation's economy, as the product of a bipartisan Washington establishment increasingly out of touch with ordinary Americans. Senator Danforth's handwritten response was received Monday, February 11.

Dear Peter:

Please excuse my tardiness in responding to the two-part open letter you wrote for the Southeast Missourian at the end of the year. The columns are extraordinarily well-written and thought provoking, and they persuasively make the case for a very valid position: that clarity is important in the world of politics, and that some of us, particularly yours truly, tend to fuzz things up with such votes as on last year's budget resolution.

You have done precisely what a good columnist (and a good politician) should do. You have presented real policy alternatives to the public in a way which invites the reader to make choices and, thus, to participate effectively in the democratic process. This is a true gift which I hope you will share with an expanding audience for years to come.

As a general proposition, I agree with your main point: the Reagan course was good for our country. Indeed, I believe that in most if not all of the Reagan years I led the Missouri delegation in supporting the President.

But I think that in addition to painting with vivid colors, we in government must add with precise numbers. It is relatively vivid to cut taxes to the bone while rebuilding our national defense, but what do we do when the numbers don't match? Do we keep on increasing the deficit for the sake of vividness?

When I came to the Senate, the national debt was $549 Billion and interest on the debt was $42 Billion. By 1990, those figures had reached $2410 Billion and $264 Billion respectively. I think this is terrible for the country, albeit amazingly vivid. I believe that the immediate result will be that recovery from the present recession will be less than robust. But even more important, this is a terrible legacy to leave to future generations.

It is often said on the political stump that Presidents don't create deficits, Congress creates deficits. If this is so, then surely it is the duty of Congress to fix the problem it has made. I do not know any way of doing this without getting both houses of Congress to agree on a budget by majority vote. This is what we were up against last fall.

[The sequester provision of] Gramm-Rudman was, of course, a theoretical alternative. But I can count on the fingers of one hand the people who truly believed that Congress should give up and put government on automatic pilot.

The Gingrich strategy (doctrine in its most vivid colors) backfired as I predicted it would. By rejecting the bipartisan compromise, House Republicans were responsible for a final budget agreement which was much worse from the standpoint of Republican philosophy.

The moral of the budget story in my mind is this: insisting on sharp ideological distinctions sometimes conflicts with the exigencies of governance, and sometimes disserves rather than serves policy goals. To me, this was surely the case with the budget imbroglio. Republicans and the country would have been far better off if we had resolved the matter earlier.

In any event, I do appreciate your open letter and the kind things you said about me, and I admire your remarkable mind and your ability to express yourself. You are a great asset to the paper and to the state.

I hope to see you in the near future. In the meantime, please know that I am the chairman and charter member of the Peter Kinder Admiration Society.

Sincerely,

Jack Danforth

United States Senator