Simon says: Dems should have seen budget mess coming

One of the most gracious politicians I have ever encountered was the late Sen. Paul Simon, who served in Congress for 20 years and made a bid for the presidency in 1988, but has since faded from public memory.

The Illinois Democrat, known for his trademark bow ties, came to Macomb County during the ’88 presidential primaries and invited me to ride along as he traveled the campaign trail. Along the way, he granted me a long interview, patiently answering my questions on a wide array of topics.

At one point he said he was thirsty and told the staffer driving the car to make an unscheduled stop. We pulled into a Burger King and Simon headed inside to buy a beverage. He said he’d get me a pop too. So, there he was: A veteran senator who was running for president was at a Burger King counter buying me a Coke.

I was reminded of that whimsical moment this morning while reading a fine piece by Major Garrett about "the ghost of Paul Simon" and his warnings long ago that Democrats were making a historic error by failing to address the growing federal debt.

Garrett, formerly of Fox News, now a writer for National Journal, was recalling how Simon was a former journalist and a former professor. But in the Senate he had the personality of a clergyman.

Garrett wrote:

“Simon the cleric was, within his party, an apostate. He routinely cosponsored a balanced-budget amendment. Doing so infuriated party leaders and President Clinton, whose war room had to badger Senate Democrats to engineer defeat of the amendment in 1995 by one vote — persuading six who voted for it a year and a day before to vote “no.” 

“Before that vote, Simon said increasing federal deficits and debt loads threatened future spending not just on entitlements, but everything else. “If we do not act, interest payouts will spiral upward until they consume not only Social Security, but also health care, education, and transportation,” he said. In his own whimsical reformation of President Kennedy’s tax-cutting-leads-to-economic-growth mantra of the early 1960s, Simon warned in the mid-1990s that “a rising tide of red ink sinks all boats.””

Referring to sequestration, Garrett wrote that nearly all of those cuts came in discretionary spending programs that Democrats cherish.  “Just as Simon warned.”

“Ironically, Simon predicted the dilemma Obama, another Illinois Democrat, has faced. He also warned if actions were not taken in the 1980s and 1990s, even liberal Democrats in future years would have to cut government in ways they opposed.”