Given what I recently wrote about America’s long-fun fiscal outlook, it is easy to understand why I expressed pessimism as part of a conversation with David McIntosh of the Club for Growth.

The presidential candidates are a big reason for my dour outlook. Joe Biden and Donald Trump have chosen to ignore  the massive long-run fiscal problems with Social Security and other entitlement programs.

Their kick-the-can-down-the-road approach is a recipe for fiscal chaos in the future. The result would be either massive tax increases, massive debt increases, or massive money printing.

Probably all three.

Given the track record (Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both embraced big tax increases), I’m not surprised that Biden and congressional Democrats are bad on the issue.

And since Trump is a big-government populist rather than a Reaganite, his approach also is predictable.

But I have wondered whether congressional Republicans would take the same head-in-the-sand approach.

Fortunately, it appears many of them have – as I noted in the above interview – a more patriotic perspective. Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute wrote about a new budget proposal from the House Republican Study Committee. Here are some excerpts.

To the RSC’s credit – and, honestly, to my own surprise – the RSC took on the dangerous issue of reforming Social Security, standing up not only to Democrats looking to demagogue the issue but to former President Trump’s efforts to duck the issue. The RSC’s proposals “include modest and delayed changes to the Primary Insurance Amount PIA) benefit formula, the retirement age, auxiliary benefits for high income earners, and gradually moving towards a flat benefit.” If you don’t want the biggest tax increase in history, those are the sorts of things you have to do. …cheers for the RSC: They’ve stood up to Congressional Democrats by at least putting a plan on the table. And, more importantly, they’ve stood up to Donald Trump’s position that Social Security reform can be ignored or hand-waved away.

If you want to learn more about the Republican Study Committee’s plan, click here and here.

It also includes Medicaid reform and Medicare reform.

So kudos to the RSC members. They want to do what’s best for the nation, even if it means exposing themselves to demagoguery.

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Image credit: 401kcalculator.org | CC BY-SA 2.0.