Posted by Leonard Steinberg on October 14th 2013

Last week my building’s board met to discuss the need to balance our budget: we realized that Manhattan inflation had caused our operating costs to rise, hence the necessary solution: we had to raise revenues so the common charges were raised by 10% to balance the books. As Board President I am always looking for cost cutting without compromising the quality and safety of the building. There simply were no areas to justify cutting costs and the owners could afford a small increase comfortably on what is already a rather tight budget.

Why can this simple, non-political, non-partisan evaluation be applied to the US budget? To my mind there are just a few simple realities that need to be addressed:

• We have over-promised (to buy votes) and we don’t have the money to pay for these promises.
• Entitlements are out of control and need to be scaled back just a bit. Social security is under-funded and muted acknowledgement has been made that we all live much longer.
• Taxation needs to be reformed to remove some loopholes that are only fair for a very select few while everyone else foots the bill (just like Mr. de Blasio’s real estate tax bill!).
• Healthcare expenses need to be addressed as these too are growing at a rate well above inflation. By the end of the decade one-third of the federal budget could be spent on health care costs, up from 10 percent in 1980!
• Government inefficiencies and waste need to be addressed again.

Maybe a Mandela-style ‘truth and reconciliation’ meeting is necessary where all sides come to the table, admit their sins and formulate sensible, practical big-picture longterm solutions for the future? According to many estimations we have to cut about $2 trillion in spending and raise $500 billion in revenues.

A tough challenge, but also rather simple, or is it just me?