Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock both visited the little town of McIntyre next to a kaolin plant in Middle Georgia recently.
The state’s federal officials came to this town of about 650 people to break ground on a new sewer system for Wilkinson County. It’s the first unified sewer system for the county and the kind of modern convenience that city dwellers take for granted as they flush their toilets and go on with their days.
As it is now, raw sewage from individual septic tanks frequently backs up into locals’ bathtubs or rises to the surface of their yards and stays there. That means a smell you’d never want and a yard that’s not safe for growing a vegetable garden. Sewage often spills into drainage ditches and local streams.
“Those are public health concerns,” explained Mayor Vicki Horne.
The mayor had to have her own septic tank replaced last year to the tune of $5,000. For anyone who can’t afford a new one, that could mean leaving their home and the town altogether. With a poverty rate of 32 percent and a median income of $22,000, that kind of expense is not feasible for most people. They needed help.
The new sewer system for McIntyre is possible thanks to $6.3 million of federal money, on top of previous state and federal grants that the city has cobbled together in the 30-plus years they’ve been trying to make it happen.
It’s the kind of federal project that nearly anybody would think is a good use of taxpayer funds. But it’s also the sort of discretionary spending that will become all but impossible in the future if leaders in Washington don’t get serious about slowing, and even lowering, the national debt, which has ballooned to nearly $31 trillion.
A standoff over the debt is intensifying as Republicans threaten not to increase the nation’s borrowing power without an agreement to cut spending. But Democrats say that raising the limit is about paying the bills the country has already run up, not about what the country will spend in the future.
They’re both right. The debt limit should be raised, on time and without a government shutdown as President Joe Biden is demanding. But hiking the debt limit and barreling forward shouldn’t be the plan, either.
Budget experts will tell you that unchecked spending, including on tax cuts, will eventually increase the cost to service the debt so much that making interest payments may be all taxes cover. Something has to give.
Like any budget that’s out of balance, the federal government eventually needs to bring in more money and spend less over time.
So far, the tough choices have eluded both parties. But would you believe that the biggest impediment to a long-term compromise isn’t President Joe Biden or Speaker Kevin McCarthy? Instead, it’s us, the voters, who rarely rate a sound federal budget as a top priority, but often punish candidates who seem open to the unsavory steps required to keep the budget healthy in the long term.
That could include both spending cuts and tax hikes. But the longer we wait, the harder it will get.
“I am a father to two small children, 6 and 4, and I don’t want to see them burdened with unsustainable debt. So we need deficit reduction,” Warnock said. “We need billionaires and billionaire corporations to finally shoulder their share of the debt.”
McCarthy and his GOP caucus have sent their proposal for spending cuts and a debt limit increase to the Senate, and McCarthy and Biden will meet at the White House this week to discuss details.
Back in McIntyre, Mayor Horne said the federal money that Ossoff and Warnock secured is what she hopes the county needs to start to attract new residents, not lose them, and create an economic stimulus of its own.
“I’m hoping that people will build homes. Hopefully jobs will come,” she said. “That’s our prayer.”
If leaders in Washington don’t get serious about lifting the debt ceiling and then controlling deficits in the future, projects like the one in McIntyre and answered prayers like Horne’s won’t be possible much longer.
Patricia Murphy is a columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
