"We're not into sacrifice"

In her US News.com opinion column, Gloria Borger looks at the continuing fissures facing the GOP with respect to the deficit, and paying for the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Katrina. She wonders why there is no talk of sacrifice

Beyond offering some recycled GOP ideas for investment in the hurricane areas--like a Gulf opportunity zone or worker recovery accounts--how about using the "S" word: sacrifice? Granted, it hasn't been used before. "We're not into sacrifice," says one Bush conservative. "Sacrifice is what the other guy gets to do." That's too bad, because maybe, just maybe, Americans would listen to a leader who convinced them that we all share our nation's problems and that we can all be a part of fixing them. Early on after Katrina, the president offered his version of sacrifice: "Don't buy gas if you don't need it."

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There is no question that the deficit will continue to explode, yet the GOP-controlled federal government refuses to acknowledge the need to increase taxes. As conservative columnist Steve Chapman points out, they already have, just not on themselves

By refusing to impose higher taxes on today's Americans, Bush is not sparing us the cost of Katrina -- he's only postponing it. He is probably also creating a burden bigger than it would be if we paid for it now. As anyone with a credit card knows, it's a lot less painful to charge a purchase than to surrender hard-earned cash from your wallet. So the temptation is to spend more than you otherwise would.

Chapman continues, and addresses the notion of spending cuts

There is an alternative to using higher taxes, now or later, to cover hurricane-related expenditures: cutting other federal programs. That's what some House Republicans say they want to do. On Thursday, they unveiled a package of cuts, dubbed "Operation Offset," to delete $70 billion in spending from next year's budget.

But the problems with this approach are obvious. The first is that these cuts wouldn't cover the anticipated costs of Katrina alone -- even before we get the tab for Rita.

The second is that they are not going to be approved. Many of the changes have been proposed and rejected in the past, and most House members would sooner remove their own kidneys without anesthesia than take goodies away from their constituents.

So where are the Democrats on this? Why isn't every Democrat calling for fiscal sanity? It seems to me the time has come for the Democrats to become the party of fiscal responsibility, and do what the GOP refuses to do: uniformly call for the repeal of the tax breaks to the wealthiest 1%, reinstate the estate tax to pre-Bush levels, cut all of  the spending on frivolous projects, and last but not least, get out of Iraq now.

I don't know, maybe I'm just too stupid.