At the advice of a caller, I logged on to usdebtclock.org to see how long it takes us to rack up another $300,000 in debt.
It takes about 10 seconds.
With that fact as backdrop, there are two ways to look at Rep. Raul Labrador’s decision to give up $300,000 from his office budget, with the proviso that the money goes into debt relief.
Æ It’s a cute little political attention-getter that, almost literally, doesn’t buy us any time at all.
Æ It’s one spending decision within the 1st Congressional District Republican’s control. And a 21 percent chop out of the 2010-11 office budget is nothing to disparage.
So I don’t.
I just can’t help but keep $300,000 in context against a $15.3 trillion national debt.
Credit to Labrador, and his seven fellow House freshmen, for doing something.
But I’d be more impressed with Labrador if he showed the fortitude to do something big.
A day after Labrador rolled out his news release on the $300,000 office savings, his 2nd District colleague rolled out a sobering release about the debt.
This is a long passage from a House hearing, with Rep. Mike Simpson questioning Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. But it’s worth the while:
Simpson: “Do you believe in the general assumption that ($4 trillion to $6 trillion) in savings is the number that will stabilize our deficit and get us headed in the right direction? Could you paint a picture for us of what you think will happen to this economy if we don’t take the steps necessary to stabilize our debt? And what will happen if we put it off another year or another year after that as we have been kicking that can farther down the road forever?”
Bernanke: “The idea was achieving ($4 trillion to $6 trillion) would stabilize the debt to GDP ratio and maybe get some progress there, and I was supportive of ‘going big’ so to speak when we were discussing all these issues last summer … The bad case scenario, which ultimately will happen if we don’t change this trajectory, (will be) analogous to what we have seen in some countries in Europe (where) investors will begin to lose confidence that we can manage our long-term fiscal situation and we will see sharp movements in interest rates or loss of confidence in U.S. debt. In which case changes would have to (be) made but in a much more chaotic, rapid, and disruptive way, than by doing a long-term thoughtful way.”
This dialogue helps explain why Simpson worked last fall on a bipartisan “go big” coalition, which sought some $4 trillion in deficit reductions. And by whatever means necessary, including spending cuts and tax increases. More than 100 House members signed on. Labrador did not.
Given Labrador’s distaste for new taxes, the “go big” concept is hard to swallow. But debt control is going to require a lot of tough decisions. I’d hazard a guess it wasn’t easy for Labrador to find 21 percent to cut from his office budget.
LUNA MUM ON K-12 LAWSUIT
K12 Inc. — a national leader in the online education industry — is facing a class action lawsuit in Virginia. The suit claims the company made false statements to investors about student test performance; K12 CEO Ron Packard and CFO Harry Hawks are listed as defendants.
The connections between K12 and Packard and state schools Superintendent Tom Luna have been well-documented. The firm contributed $44,000 to Luna’s re-election bid in 2010. Luna has described Packard as a friend; the two have played golf together during the Governor’s Cup, an annual fundraiser for student scholarships.
On Thursday, during a Statesman editorial board meeting, Luna praised K12’s work in Idaho, providing curriculum materials to the online Idaho Virtual Academy and at least two other public school districts, the Bonneville and Minidoka districts.
IDVA, an online charter school with approximately 3,000 students, met Idaho’s yardstick for Adequate Yearly Progress — the state’s annual report card on school quality.
“That’s how we gauge academic success in Idaho today,” Luna said.
But it took a couple of testy minutes for Luna to get there. First, Luna took issue with a blog post on the suit, written by the Statesman’s Dan Popkey, citing his connections to K12 and Packard. Luna said he doesn’t own any piece of K12 and has never seen a financial statement for the company. He said he knew nothing about the lawsuit, “and I don’t know why I would know what it’s about.”
That’s plausible. But there’s a price to taking big-money contributions; your benefactor’s bad press reflects on you.
And there’s a more important question than what Luna knows about a lawsuit filed earlier this week in a courtroom 2,000 miles away.
The bigger question is what the outcome of this lawsuit winds up saying about K12, a vendor that could wind up profiting from Luna’s push for online education. No amount of testiness changes that.
Kevin Richert: 377-6437
