A local North Dakota newspaper asked a Republican political candidate about their thoughts about the federal budget. Read their answers (below) and then identify the main arguments and contrast them to the opposing side in the debates over the deficit and the debt covered in this class.

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April 2, 2022

Meet the candidate: Exclusive interview with Rick Becker

Dickinson (ND) Press

With the North Dakota GOP Convention underway, Rick Becker sat down for an exclusive interview with The Dickinson Press to share more about his positions and what direction he would like to take the country.

'Profligate spending and the national debt

Reforming the three major federal entitlement programs, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security has often been called the third rail of American politics, because any attempts at reform are met with fierce backlash. In 2005, President George W. Bush offered a modest proposal to reform Social Security and make it fiscally stable for the long-term. It was shot down in flames by Congress. Becker seeks to pick that torch back up.

“If we're going to have a program in which there's Social Security in old age, at the very least it should be something that's like a 401(k) where it's invested in this type of scenario and it's not spent, it’s actually there,” he said. “Congress shouldn’t be able to take it, leave an IOU and go spend it on something else. So that becomes a Ponzi scheme."

Yet, Becker believes that absent significant reform, the deficits being driven by these programs will crush future generations under a mountain of profligately attained national debt.

“The thing is you don’t want to rely on future generations to have to pay up the difference,” he said.

Becker went on to describe a “real fiscal cliff," not the one hyped by some media outlets during budget conflicts between former President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner 10 years ago, but a genuine point of no return in which future generations would be so mired in government debt they will have no hope of enjoying the magnificent living standards of modern America. When asked how soon he thinks that will come, Becker said we’re getting closer to the edge.

At a certain point, it turns into an impossible situation, he said, such that any mitigation will be economically harmful.

“It's really something, isn't it? Because it’s the big spending we have to correct. And the Federal Reserve in attempting to correct it is increasing interest rates, which is going to hasten our demise,” he said.

It’s not time to give up hope on the nation’s future just yet, he said, adding that if a president and enough members of Congress can be convinced of the severity of the problem there may be time to reverse course. He emphasized that his solution of a small but across-the-board spending cut will require sacrifices.

“We start attacking the debt, and there's that penny plan. Now, I think it's a three-penny plan where you decrease by 2 or 3%, the amount you spent the year before. And it doesn't take that long and then the debt's gone. So there's a way to do it. It's just a matter of whether people want to save America,” he said. “You have people who say, ‘No, I want to save America but I don't want my life to be any different than it is now.’ Okay, so then you don't want to save America.”