The U.S. Federal Budget and the Collapse of the Roman Republic

Rome Didn't Fall in a Day

Marcus Cicero was a philosopher, orator and statesman of the ancient Roman Republic.  It is said that Cicero had the greatest influence by any individual on European language, literacy and ideas.  Marcus Cicero rose through Roman society to become Consul, the highest position of the Roman Republic.  Cicero’s younger brother, Quintus Cicero, was a leading commander of the Roman army.

In the year 64 B.C., Quintus Cicero wrote a letter to his older brother Marcus, regarding Marcus’ political campaign for Consul.   The letter concisely states the themes of both ancient and modern politics.   Quintus advised Marcus to make promises liberally. “If you make a promise, the thing is still uncertain, depends on a future day, and concerns but few people; but if you refuse, you alienate people to a certainty and at once, and many people too.”

In other words, Promise everything to everybody.  [by translator P.Freeman, "How to Win an Election".]

Quintus also wrote about political issues of his time.   His text could be a letter to the editor in this morning’s newspaper.

“The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced, if the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”  

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We are now in the silly season of American presidential politics.   

Both parties have nominated their candidates for president, written their platforms, held their conventions, made endless pleas for donations to run political advertisement.  Heeding the advice of Quintus Cicero, they have distorted and disparaged the record of their opponents, avoided clear discussion of the issues, promised everything to everybody, and lied liberally about everything.

Let’s look at the United States’ Federal budget for 2012

Federal spending is shown in the following chart.   Total spending is $3.894 trillion, or 26% of GDP.   

Social Security and Medicare represent about 32% of total Federal spending.  Defense and Veteran’s benefits are about 22%.  Interest on existing debt is 6%.  Together, these items are about 15.5% of GDP.

Tax receipts, according to the budget, are expected to be 2.469 trillion dollars.   A small increment of additional funding is found in the budget as line item 950, Undistributed Offsetting Receipts, adding about 98 billion dollars.   Total funding is thus expected to be $2.568 trillion dollars, or about 17 percent of GDP.

The total Federal deficit for 2012 is about 1.3 trillion dollars.  Federal spending exceeds tax revenue by an astonishing 51%.

Federal debt held by investors (“public debt”) is now about $11 trillion dollars, or about 72% percent of GDP.   Public debt is growing at a rate of about 20 percent per year, a rate that would double the debt in 3 ½ years.  Foreign investors hold $5.3 trillion, or nearly half of the public debt.   Obligations between government agencies, such as the social security trust fund, amount to an additional $4.7 trillion, bringing total Federal debt to $16 trillion (107% of GDP).

Against this backdrop, Republicans propose an amendment to the constitution requiring a balanced budget.  Mitt Romney proposes to cut marginal tax rates by 20 percent.  He also proposes raising Defense spending by about 5% (excluding war expenses), adding 100,000 members of the military, modernizing weapons, and building more ships and aircraft.   He said that budgetary changes will not affect current retirees or veterans.   

Defense, Elder-care programs, and Interest are about 60 percent of Federal spending.  If all tax revenues were applied to these categories with no reductions and a balanced budget, as proposed by Republicans, it would eliminate 83% of all other government functions.  This is without even considering the proposed tax cut.

We cannot eliminate 7/8ths of the functions of the Federal government to pay for defense and elder-care.   It is absurd.

Democrats have been equally negligent in providing a clear blueprint toward solution of the crisis.
Both sides are simply promising everything to everybody.   

It is clear that any solution to the budget crisis will require a combination of increased taxes, cuts to defense spending, and reductions in elder care.  And these changes must be implemented sooner rather than later.

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Marcus Cicero was successful in his election campaign.  He was elected Consul in the year 63 BC.  Shortly thereafter, the Roman Republic collapsed in a series of civil wars followed by dictatorship of the Caesars.   

Quintus Cicero, his son, and Marcus Cicero were declared enemies of the state and executed in 43 BC.  The Roman Empire continued as a dictatorship for four hundred years.
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Addendum:   A few days after I wrote this post, retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter was interviewed, as part of a civic education project in New Hampshire.  Souter is worried about 'pervasive civic ignorance' in America.   Here are his words.

"What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible.  And when the problems get bad enough - another serious terrorist attack, another financial meltdown - some one person will come forward and say, 'Give me total power, and I will solve this problem.' That is how the Roman Republic fell....That is how democracy dies.  And if something is not done to improve the level of civic knowledge, that is what you should worry about at night….I am not a pessimist, but I am not an optimist about the future of American democracy.”

David Souter, retired Supreme Court Justice, September 17, 2012

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Quintus Cicero Quotes:

http://www.bartleby.com/73/1543.html

http://www.quotatio.com/c/cicero-quintus-tullius-quotes2.html

Federal Budget data:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget

http://budget.house.gov/budgetprocess/budgetfunctions.htm

http://budget.house.gov/budgetprocess/budgetfunctions.htm#function600

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

Marcus and Quintus Cicero

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Cicero

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Tullius_Cicero

Pamphlet on Electioneering, 
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_running_for_the_Consulship
also, How to Win an Election, (trans. P Freeman, Amazon.com)

http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Election-Ancient-Politicians/dp/0691154082/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347681795&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+win+an+election+Cicero

Mitt Romney, Republican Platform

http://www.gop.com/2012-republican-platform_home/

http://aboutmittromney.com/military.htm

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/17/where-obama-romney-stand-on-foreign-policy-challenges/

David Souter, interview

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/09/conversation-justice-david-souter.html