By Arthur Alpert

Give ‘em credit – the Albuquerque Journal publishes some amazing stories.

The latest came courtesy of Washington reporter Michael Coleman in a January 25 Op Ed updating us on former Republican Senator Pete Domenici’s doings (subscription required).

Domenici, it turns out, is embarking on a “new challenge,” reining in the national debt. He is co-chair (alongside a Democratic economist) of the Debt Reduction Tax Force at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.

“We are taking on the biggest problem America has ever had,” Domenici told Coleman. “People have to understand if we don’t curb our avaricious appetite for borrowed money, that’s it.”

Coleman reports that the former Senator and his co-chair will put all options, including Social Security and Medicare, on the table.

What’s amazing about this is, of course, Domenici’s about-face.
He hasn’t been a budget-balancing conservative for years. From 2001through 2008, the Bush Administration wiped out a surplus, turned it into a deficit and shot that deficit into the stratosphere, all with Domenici’s help.

The U.S launched two wars and paid for neither. Raising taxes in wartime is just plain responsible but the White House and Domenici not only balked but did the opposite – cutting taxes. Spending soared, tax revenues plummeted and the deficit, like Albuquerque in October, ballooned.

And they didn’t stop there. It was 2003. The White House was already projecting the largest deficit in American history, $475 billion. But there was an election. To win seniors’ votes, the GOP passed the Part D Medicare “reform.” It cut prices for prescription drugs while guaranteeing the pharmaceutical industry a windfall.

The estimated total cost was, minimally, $400 billion. And every penny went on the national credit card.

Republican conservatives objected so fiercely that Republican leadership (Tom DeLay) extended the House debate into the wee hours, buying some and browbeating others, to win its passage.

Senator Domenici needed no persuasion; he was enthusiastic in support of this big, fat, un-paid-for entitlement.

In fact, from 2001, with Domenici wielding power through the Senate Budget and Energy committees, the federal government spent more than $1 trillion dollars on wars, tax cuts (most generous to the ultra-rich) and the Medicare Part D “reform.” (Frank Rich’s Jan. 31 N.Y. Times column has a more nuanced analysis.)

In that 2001-2008 context, you can see why Senator Domenici’s new-old passion for dousing deficits leaps off the page. Amazes. Raises questions.
How does the Senator justify his apostasy during the Bush years? Why did he build deficits then that he now decries? Did – Heaven forfend – partisanship come into play? What was his rationale for the spending spree? And from whence cometh this born-again deficit hawkishness?

Michael Coleman informs us (in a nice, human touch) that the Senator is in good physical shape. If so, why not follow up?