AUGUSTA – With the deadline to raise the nation’s debt limit and avoid default fast approaching, it’s time for the political games to end.

Clearly, Congress must raise the debt limit. The repercussions of default could cause markets to plummet, capital businesses’ need for growth to evaporate, and the middle class to be squeezed.

Members of both parties must also work together to put our nation on a more sustainable, responsible fiscal path, and they must do so with a balanced approach that ensures shared sacrifice.

Some in Washington are insisting that savings come only from the spending side of the budget. Their proposals would place the burden of deficit reduction largely on retirees, working families and poor people in America.

One such proposal, the Ryan budget adopted by the House of Representatives, would impose sweeping cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, student financial aid, small business loans and other core federal programs and services.

Yet this plan, named for Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., does little to reduce the deficit because it would cut taxes even below their current levels, reducing revenues needed to pay for services.

Another proposal, led by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., would cap total federal spending at 21 percent of the economy as a whole, commonly called the gross domestic product (GDP).

Although it sounds benign, this proposal would also require enormous cuts in programs that help millions of Americans. Medicare and Medicaid would have to be cut dramatically, pushing costs onto states, providers and beneficiaries. Many elderly people, including nursing home residents, children, and the disabled could be affected.

Capping total spending would also lead to massive cuts in education, road and bridge construction and maintenance, environmental protection, medical research, food and water safety and many other areas.

State and local governments, which currently receive one-third of all federal, non-security discretionary spending, would have to cut back services even more. Cities and towns would have to choose between increasing property taxes and reducing services and laying off workers.

The problem is that these approaches focus solely on spending cuts while protecting tax breaks for millionaires and powerful corporations and other special interests that can afford to hire high-priced lobbyists.

The choices Congress makes about how to resolve the deficit problem will affect every American. Retirement security and health care for millions of people hang in the balance.

The opportunity for good education — from Head Start through college — will affect millions of children and shape the quality of our future work force. The availability of small business loans will affect job creation.

There are also proposals to add a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, one of which would cap spending at 18 percent of GDP.

This proposal — which the Senate could vote on next week — would force even more draconian cuts than the Corker proposal and would hurt many seniors, children, people with disabilities, veterans and middle class taxpayers across Maine.

There is a better, fairer way to tackle the deficit problem, but it requires shared sacrifice. The only way to solve this problem and prevent enormous cuts in core government programs is to also consider responsible ways to raise federal revenues and ensure that the wealthy pay their fair share.

The President’s Debt Commission chaired by Erskine Bowles, former President Clinton’s chief of staff, and Alan Simpson, former Republican senator from Wyoming, and the Bipartisan Commission co-chaired by Pete Domenici, former Republican senator from New Mexico, and Alice Rivlin, the first head of the Congressional Budget Office, both concluded that increasing revenues must be part of a responsible deficit reduction package.

These bipartisan plans also adhere to a principle that every major deficit reduction proposal has followed since 1985: deficit reduction must not drive families into poverty or further increase the gap between rich and poor.

It’s time for this debt ceiling game to end and for Congress and the administration to put the nation’s best interest first by taking a balanced approach to deficit reduction.

– Special to The Press Herald