By Amy Schweitzer
U.S. Sen. Mike Johanns told Central Nebraskans what many of them already knew: The national debt is out of control, it won't be an easy fix, and it will take bipartisan cooperation to do anything about it.
Johanns spoke in Aurora, Grand Island and Hastings on Tuesday about balancing the federal budget.
He explained that, of the $3.68 trillion annual budget, 86 percent goes toward programs that most people agree are important to pay for -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Department of Defense and interest on the national debt. All other programs only amount to 14 percent of the budget.
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"If I came here to tell you I'm not going to raise taxes but I'm going to protect Social Security, I support the health care bill, I believe in strong national defense and paying the interest on the debt, and we're going to do all that and balance the budget, then I'd be lying," Johanns said. "That's not even mathematically possible."
The deficit is about $1.3 trillion, and the nation has a national debt of $14.34 trillion and growing.
"There is plenty of debate on whose fault it is -- Democrats, Republicans, the president, " Johanns said. "But actually everyone can take ownership in this."
It has been growing since 1970, when the debt was $380 billion.
Johanns said the problem is compounded by the probability that interest rates, which are currently at historic lows, will soon rise.
He said many agree that it would be a good idea to cut spending and balance the budget, but what should they cut?
Many constituents have called with ideas for programs to cut, including foreign aid, earmarks, money to the International Monetary Fund, corporate jet deduction, oil and gas manufacturing deduction, ethanol tax credit, direct payments to farmers and reversing the Bush tax cuts to those who earn more than $250,000.
"Even if we eliminated all these entirely, we could run the government for 20 days," Johanns said, adding that eliminating those programs would save about $201.7 billion, or about 5.6 percent of the annual budget.
He noted that the budget control act that was passed to raise the debt ceiling included several requirements for cuts, including for every dollar the debt ceiling goes up there has to be the same amount cut from the budget.
Step one includes $917 billion in identified cuts. Step two states that a committee must come up with $1.2 trillion in cuts, and step three states that, if the committee can't come up with the cuts or Congress will not accept those recommendations, then there will be automatic cuts. It does exclude Social Security, veterans and Medicare benefits, and military pay.
Johanns said Nebraska residents will likely see the impact because $23 billion will likely be cut from farm programs, including direct payments.
He noted that an Ohio senator created a chart that found, if each time the government wanted to raise the debt ceiling, it was forced to cut the same amount from the budget, America would have a balanced budget in 10 years.
Johanns said during a question period that, if the economy were to turn around, it would certainly shorten the amount of time to repay the nation's debt. If the 9 percent of the nation that is currently unemployed were working and paying taxes, that would mean more money coming into the national coffers.
He said there are a few ways to create a few jobs, including a possible bill to add jobs through road construction. Johanns added that he believed even President Obama didn't believe his jobs bill had a chance of passing.
"The president's plan was never taken seriously," he said, adding that Obama couldn't even get all the Democrats to support it. "I think it's a messaging bill."
Johanns said he would support a roads bill to create road construction jobs and maybe one for research and development.
"I think there is still hope," he said.
Johanns also was in Hastings on Tuesday for a round-table discussion on a new Environmental Protection Agency policy on emissions from coal-fired power plants that will go into effect on Jan. 1.
He said the point of the discussion is to figure out a way to "buy some time." He said no one he had talked to was saying he or she thought emissions shouldn't be controled, but to give the plants more than a few months to retrofit, if possible, and come into compliance.
"This is something that will take a couple years, not five months," Johanns said.