At some point, the music must be faced

The recently passed tax-reform package was, in and of itself, a great piece of legislation, and it's having immediate effects all over the country. Bonuses, pay raises, capital equipment expenditures.

But it can't be considered in isolation. Its beneficial effects coincide with this:

It was another crazy news week, so it's understandable if you missed a small but important announcement from the Treasury Department: The federal government is on track to borrow nearly $1 trillion this fiscal year — Trump's first full year in charge of the budget.

That's almost double what the government borrowed in fiscal year 2017.

Here are the exact figures: The U.S. Treasury expects to borrow $955 billion this fiscal year, according to a documents released Wednesday. It's the highest amount of borrowing in six years, and a big jump from the $519 billion the federal government borrowed last year.

I'll cut to the chase: Nothing changes on the debt and deficit front until and unless this nation changes its view that government ought to be in the business of providing "services." And no one has a good suggestion for putting that horse back in the barn.

Ted Cruz made the most admirable effort I've seen in years, perhaps ever, in 2015, when he issued his Five for Freedom, listing the IRS and the departments of Education, Energy, Commerce and Housing and Urban Development as cabinet-level entities he'd get rid of. That's the first of his five initiatives. the others are as follows:

Second, besides these unnecessary cabinet agencies and the IRS, we will sharply reduce the agencies, bureaus, commissions, and other programs that are harming American households and businesses — including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Together with the four departments and the IRS, our conservative estimate of the effects of these eliminations and reductions is a savings of over $500 billion over ten years. And that’s just a start. The true savings — of scaling down the scope of the federal government, of restoring to the states their rightful authority, and of unleashing the people’s ingenuity — cannot be measured by a number. We are uprooting the centralized power that we have lived under for far too long.

Third, we will bring back a proven approach from the prosperous days of the Reagan administration: a private-sector panel to assess federal spending levels and evaluate areas of waste and fraud for removal. At President Reagan’s behest, the Grace Commission recommended 2,478 “cost-cutting, revenue-enhancing” suggestions, without raising taxes, weakening defense, or harming social welfare. It was a major success among other policies that created a great economic boom, and it deserves a reprise.

Fourth, we will hold Congress accountable; it too often delegates its authority to unelected bureaucrats. We will enact a strong Balanced Budget Amendment. And, by enacting the REINS Act, we will require that a majority of members approve any major, cost-inducing regulations.

Fifth, we will put in place a hiring freeze of federal civilian employees across the executive branch. For those agencies in which it is determined that a vacant position needs to be filled, I will authorize the hiring of a maximum ratio of one person for every three who leave. And rather than automatically increasing federal workers’ pay annually, workers will have more opportunities for merit-based pay increases.

What a national treasure he is - and we could have had him as our president.

He's spot-on with regard to what needs to happen with Social Security as well:

we need to honor the promises made to our seniors. But for younger workers--look, I'm 44 years old--it is hard to find someone in my generation that thinks Social Security will be there for us. We can save and preserve and strengthen Social Security by making no changes for seniors; but for younger workers, gradually increasing the retirement age, changing the rate of growth so that it matches inflation and critically allowing younger workers to keep a portion of our tax payments in a personal account that we own, we control, and we can pass on to our kids. We can do both.

And recall that he was at the forefront of the push to use defunding as a way to repeal the "Affordable" Care Act. It's safe to say that it's too late to look at that now. The program is too well entrenched. It will just have to die of its own accord, leaving more upheaval in American lives in its wake than would have been the case if we'd defunded in 2013.

Look, the point here is not to engage in a tribalist yay-rah about Ted Cruz. He's great, but it's because he's been such an articulate spokesman for freedom and fiscal responsibility.

But demagogues abound, and in this age of coarse dismissals of defenders of freedom, and emotion-based appeals ("government made us promises, and now it by golly needs to figure out how it's going to honor them!") we don't proceed in a clear-headed, principles-driven manner.

But to say these great tax cuts shouldn't have happened because the debt and deficit continue to balloon is disingenuous. We all know in our heart of hearts what needs to happen, and it's not government seizing even more of our money at gunpoint.