We Need Another Daniel Webster: Lasting accomplishment often needs to be bipartisan but few lawmakers will compromise so for the last 25 years the mandatory spending problem has been ignored.

In 2010, Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) of the Senate Budget Committee said “History will condemn us all if we don’t do substantially more to reduce debt. It is growing constantly and the implications for our fiscal future are dire. We are putting at risk the economic security of this country.” The debt was then $13.5 trillion.

The U.S. national debt is now more than $34.8 trillion, and four months ago it was $34.2 trillion. Mandatory spending (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, other healthcare, and interest on the debt) is on track to consume 80% of federal spending, and interest payments are now higher than defense spending.
Social Security and Medicare will also be insolvent within a decade without reforms. Debt is expensive, and high debt levels have negative effects across many sectors of the economy. How did this happen? The dire fiscal warnings have been ignored for 25 years and lawmakers in both parties refused to compromise. George W. Bush was the last president to propose major mandatory spending reforms and the he did it when the debt was $7 trillion. All of his predictions came true and the situation today is worse than he imagine.
He also learned the reforming mandatory programs cannot be accomplished on a purely partisan basis. The solution will probably involve means testing, increases in the maximum salary subject to Social Security taxes and a higher retirement age. We now need a grand bargain.
Republicans often advocate reduced government spending but their tactic of the past three decades, shutting down the government, has not worked. This began with the 1995 confrontation between President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich when the government was shut down twice.
The first furlough lasted 6 days and the next one lasted 21 days. The public reaction was negative and Bill Clinton was re-elected with 56% of the vote. There is no problem rolling back spending in the GOP House, but the Democratic Senate is a major roadblock.

We Need Another Daniel Webster
Our nation faces severe debt and deficit problems and the impasse will likely continue unless there is a bipartisan long term solution which includes entitlement reforms.
A great time to announce a grand bargain would be on March 7th, 2025. The date means nothing to the present generation but before the Civil War many school children were required to memorize excerpts from the 7th of March Address of Senator Daniel Webster (MA) who said:

I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American. I speak today for the preservation of the Union. Hear me for my cause.

Webster was willing to work with his ardent political foe, Senator Henry Clay (KY), to avoid a Civil War. Their efforts resulted in the Compromise of 1850 which delayed the war by a decade.
Webster represented the abolitionist stronghold of Massachusetts and his willingness to compromise outraged many of his supporters. James Russell Lowell called him “the most meanly and foolishly treacherous man I ever heard of.”
Webster resigned from the Senate under pressure but there was a consolation prize, he once again became Secretary of State. He had two years to live. The important point is that he was willing to demonstrate political courage because he knew it would benefit the nation.
We need lawmakers who might now in Webster’s words be willing to “perform something worthy to be remembered.” There have been laudable recommendations in the past but they all failed on Capitol Hill or were rejected by the White House. To its credit, President Obama’s debt commission recommended entitlement reforms. The result would have been $4 trillion in savings and zero deficits between 2015 and 2025, but Obama rejected all of their proposals. The Washington Post called him the “Punter-in-Chief” for failing to address the problems.
We need politicians who will demonstrate real leadership on the debt and deficit. There would be political pain associated with reducing Social Security cost of living adjustments, but it would make Social Security solvent and reduce America’s unfunded Medicare liabilities by trillions of dollars.