Kababyboom!

An odd thing is going on in Washington policymaking circles. Folks are beginning to talk again about the budget, specifically about erasing the deficit and how the situation could woefully worsen if lawmakers stay the course.
President Bush, who entered office with a sizable budget surplus that quickly evaporated after 9/11, has proposed balancing the budget by 2012. The budget imbalance can be corrected, according to Bush, if Congress stops spending taxpayer dollars on pet pork projects buried in fatty bills and report language.
It is much less an idealistic budget policy matter for Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who foresees a budget Katrina if lawmakers fail to reform Social Security and Medicare by the time baby boomers kick back. Sure, the budget deficit may shrink or moderate over the next few years. But that doesn’t give Bernanke much comfort.
“Unfortunately, we are experiencing what seems likely to be the calm before the storm,” said Bernanke in written testimony before the Senate Budget Committee last week.
So what? Well, the macroeconomic stakes are enormous. But on a more parochial level, it could impact mushrooming debates about whether spectrum should be removed from auction block and handed over to public safety to share with commercial wireless operators and whether unassigned TV guard bands should be freed up for unlicensed use or auctioned for licensing.
In the 1993 law authorizing spectrum auctions as a licensing tool, Congress was clear in stating competitive bidding should be founded on public interest considerations, not on expectation of revenues for the U.S. Treasury. Everyone knows Congress has since made a mockery of the very guiding light it turned on.
Public safety advocates, will argue this is a false choice. Moreover, they will assert homeland security should not fall prey to bean counting. Unlicensed TV white space backers could argue broader broadband access will pay for itself as an economic driver across the board.
The reality is this: Budget deficit hawks could soon again have a seat at the table. If that happens, it will change everything-including anything having to do with airwaves that budget lawmakers are bound to regard as their Billion Dollar Baby.