Stop, Listen & Act: Panel Discussion On Our Fiscal Future

By Andrew Yarrow

What are the most effective ways to get people to listen, become concerned, and press their leaders to take action to reduce the seemingly inexorable rise of federal debt? That was the central question discussed at a February 25 forum, "Trillions of Reasons to Get Serious About Our Fiscal Future," at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. (click here to check out the webcast of the event).

Do you make extremely complex material more accessible to the public? Do you scare people? Do you get an inspired, unexpected messenger with a "road to Damascus" fervor, as envisioned by Richard Keil, a former White House correspondent and current director of Public Strategies Inc.? Do you push the media to highlight when "outside validaters" agree rather than allow the debate to be framed by "dueling experts," as suggested by Public Agenda President Ruth Wooden, a member of the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States, which issued its report in January? Should you talk explicitly about "winners" and "losers," as said by the Urban Institute's Eugene Steuerle, an expert on both taxes and Social Security, and Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform?

Do you need to set a clear goal, mobilize the public behind that goal (click here to see public opinion on this issue), and then get policymakers to act, as argued by MacGuineas and Rudolph Penner, an Urban Institute fellow and former Congressional Budget Office director who chaired the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States? Do you talk in high-minded terms of shared "sacrifice"? Do you send the message if we spend less on debt, we can spend more on things that people want, as suggested by Steuerle and Margaret Simms of the Urban Institute's Low-Income Working Families project? And how do you overcome what Wooden terms the "default to inertia"?

As the deficit commission established by President Obama takes shape, and in the wake of the recent reports by both the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States and the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform on how to reduce America's massive and rapidly growing debt burden, how do you get Americans to care? If citizens do not, politicians will be unlikely to take on "third-rail" issues such as cutting Social Security or Medicare benefits or increasing taxes.

Panelists agreed that the problems in how to constructively talk about the budget deficit and national debt are legion. Americans, said Wooden and Simms, don't trust the information and its messengers. Scary scenarios of economic Armageddon may garner attention, but, Penner and Wooden observed, can either lead people to hopelessness or a Chicken Little-style cynicism. It is essential, said Keil, to convey that the United States has faced challenges before and "we can fix it."

Turn the debate away from points of disagreement and forge a "united front across the political spectrum," as Wooden said. Public and media discussion, said Steuerle, need to be turned away from a focus on who "wins" and "loses" under various reforms, and toward an examination of the substantive issues.

Several panelists suggested the importance of either an "unexpected" messenger leading the crusade, analogous to T. Boone Pickens' 2009 campaign for wind energy. MacGuineas, for her part, took a leaf from recent campaigns to help disaster victims and suggested that former Presidents Bush and Clinton speak out together, demonstrating that America's fiscal future is a bipartisan concern.

Setting a single, clear goal such as reducing debt to 60 percent of GDP is something that could be agreed upon, said Penner and MacGuineas. The practical policy steps and compromises will more easily follow.

The President's new 18-member commission on fiscal responsibility and reform, said Wooden, would be well-served to recognize and engage the public from the start, getting public buy-in for action now, rather than waiting until December when the commission is set to issue its report. In short, desperately needed fiscal reforms won't happen when elites are talking only to one another: the public must feel trust, a sense of all being in this together, and that they are being heard—not just lectured to—by their leaders.

Andrew Yarrow, Public Agenda vice president and director of our Washington, D.C., office, speaks often on the subject of the federal budget deficit and national debt, as part of our Students Face Up to the Nation's Finances curriculum and as a participant in workshops held by Generations United. Yarrow is a contributing author to "The Federal Budget Deficit," a new collection of essays on this issue, and is the author of books including "Forgive Us Our Debts: The Intergenerational Dangers of Fiscal Irresponsibility."

To be a part of the solution to our nation's fiscal crisis, join the discussion here or at OurFiscalFuture.org, on Facebook and on our Twitter feeds @FiscalFuture, @FacingUp and @PublicAgenda.