Find the Political Will to Fix Financial Woes

President Barack Obama was right about at least two things Monday. The nation's financial problems are eminently solvable, and what's missing is the political will to actually solve the problems. Congress and the president need to provide that will in the months ahead, especially in the work of the so-called super committee that's been charged with cutting the federal deficit.

Obama spoke Monday as markets were taking another steep dive, this time spurred by Standard & Poor's downgrading of the U.S. credit rating last week from AAA to AA+. Critics of the downgrading make some good points: The downgrade may have been at least partially based on an error, and S&P is hardly the best agency to judge someone else's debt, given the role it played in events that lead to the crash of 2008.

Furthermore, there may be more than just a little politics in S&P's opinion on U.S. debt. And downgrading by one agency is hardly the end of the world. Japan was downgraded in 2002 by S&P and has had no problems borrowing money.

Nevertheless, unless the Obama administration and Congress get a grip on the nation's fiscal challenges, more downgrades, market slides and deeper recession could follow.

And Obama's statement Monday that "no matter what some agency may say, we've always been and always will be a triple-A country," goes beyond Pollyanish.

Whether or not S&P was justified, no one can just wish away the problems. Markets are dropping precipitously, and not just because of credit ratings. It's because of a number of recent troubling signs that economic recovery remains on life support.

Let's start with the committee. As we noted last week, an open-minded analysis of the debt will lead committee members to the same solutions reached by the deficit-reduction commission chaired by former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming and former Clinton aide Erskine Bowles.

Simpson-Bowles provides a good road map for the new committee; among other proposals, it would have trimmed $4 trillion from the budget over a decade through both tax increases and spending cuts. But Obama declined to do anything with that road map. And Republican tea party members of Congress who hijacked their party showed their irresponsibility by refusing to compromise on almost any issue. Their willingness on the debt-ceiling issue to risk the nation's economy rather than allow any increased revenue was especially disturbing.

Posturing and wishful thinking will get the nation only more trouble. Responsible governing requires sound ideas and compromise. That's what the super committee, Obama and Congress must provide in the months ahead.

REPRINTED FROM THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINAL

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