Daily Herald editorial

Minnesotans who have temporarily escaped one budget crisis ought to turn their attention to another, even bigger, worry: The federal budget.

Debate over how to shape the United States’ budget in a way that will begin to limit our gigantic collective debt is shaping up as a larger version of Minnesota’s own haphazardly resolved budget problem. At the federal level, a Democratic president has one vision for federal spending and the increasingly conservative Congress has another. Because countries, unlike states, don’t have to balance their budgets every two years, the federal debate is over how much to borrow. Many believe that if a new, higher borrowing limit is not set within the next couple of weeks, the United States will effectively run out of money. Like all things in Washington, this is a matter for debate. What isn’t debatable, however, is that the United States government has relied for years on borrowing money in order to keep afloat all of its operations — and if that trend is not at some point reversed, or at least modified, it will spell major trouble for future generations.

As with Minnesota’s budget crisis, there are two ways to resolve the matter: Spend less, tax more or do some of each.

There are many roadblocks to resolve the issue, ranging from the tendency of senators and representatives — even those supposedly opposed to more spending — to cut their districts big pieces of federal pork whenever possible, to the philosophical differences between Democrats and Republicans.

It is a debate that bears watching, because it will affect every American in one way or another, and the stakes make Minnesota’s budget crisis look like relatively small change.