Will the next Paul Tsongas please stand up

Tsongas, a former Massachusetts senator, made fiscal responsibility one of his cherished causes. After his 1992 presidential campaign, he helped found the Concord Coalition, the well-known deficit watchdog.

Although large budget deficits are appropriate during recessionary times, the current budgetary imbalances are so severe they won’t shrink back to reasonable levels even when recovery comes. The Congressional Budget Office, for example, has estimated that the government will run up $9.1 trillion in cumulative deficits over the next decade and in 2019 still face a yearly budget deficit of $1.1 trillion, an unsustainable 5.5 percent of gross domestic product.

Taming that deficit, fiscal experts agree, will require a combination of spending discipline and additional revenues.

I’ve queried each of the Democratic candidates about the deficit. Another barometer of their attitudes came during the recent Kennedy Institute debate, when moderator Peter Meade asked whether they favored borrowing more or raising taxes to fund a possible second stimulus package.

When I interviewed her, Attorney General Martha Coakley was forceful about placing blame for the deficit, saying, “Let’s not forget where it came from: the Bush administration.’’

Certainly President Bush’s fiscal policies are one of the biggest factors, responsible for an estimated one-third to two-fifths of the deteriorating fiscal picture. Another large contributor is the economic slowdown. President Obama’s policies, meanwhile, are put at 15 to 20 percent.

But what’s Coakley’s solution? “You have to look at the spending side, but you also have to look at what are the tax cuts that Bush gave to the top 2 percent, the wealthiest people in the country,’’ she said.

Problem: The CBO projections cited above assume the expiration of tax cuts for upper earners.

“You can’t get serious about deficit reduction by just taxing the wealthy,’’ notes Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition.

In the Kennedy Institute debate, Coakley said if a second stimulus package were needed, it should be thought of as an investment, meaning that she would finance it through more borrowing.

“I can’t come in as a single senator and solve a problem that has been in the making for a long time, so I don’t pretend to be a savior on it,’’ she told me.

Tsongas score: For avoiding the truly difficult fiscal issues, Coakley earns only a three of a possible 10.

Fixing the deficit “is a matter of a combination of spending [cuts] and raising revenue, and that combination is subject to the political will of the people,’’ US Representative Michael Capuano replied when, at his announcement, I asked about the deficit. That formulation, of course, fails to mention the role courageous political leadership should play.

Answering Meade’s debate question, Capuano said he would “raise taxes on the wealthiest people in America’’ to fund a second stimulus. When I asked him whether he would support a tax increase on those making less than $250,000 to reduce the deficit, Capuano offered a roundabout answer.

“I pay as much taxes as probably most people in this room,’’ he said. “If you are getting a balanced budget, if you get a future that is secure for my children and my grandchildren, I think that’s a worthwhile thing.’’

For his acknowledgement, albeit tentative, of intergenerational responsibility, Capuano ekes out a Tsongas score of four.

During the Kennedy Institute debate, businessman Steve Pagliuca was adamant that any new stimulus shouldn’t be financed through borrowing. “The debt will crush us, crush our children,’’ he said.

Pagliuca claims the budget can be balanced in three to five years without new taxes on families earning less than $250,000 a year. That, he asserts, is achievable by reducing unemployment to 4.5 percent, cutting the defense budget by $69 billion, letting the top income tax rate revert from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, and increasing the capital gains tax from 15 to 20 percent.

This sounds like a thoughtful plan, but in large part, Pagliuca is simply using rosy assumptions to wish away thorny realities. As Bixby notes, even when CBO assumes that all the Bush tax cuts will expire, it still projects a deficit of 3.2 percent of GDP five years hence.

For optimism so extravagant it sidesteps tough choices, Pagliuca earns a Tsongas score of only four.

“Paul Tsongas was a hero of mine,’’ declares City Year cofounder Alan Khazei.

During the debate, Khazei favored borrowing for another stimulus package now, but called for tackling the deficit once the economy has recovered. He wants to return the two top income tax rates to their Clinton-era levels - which would likely touch some upper-middle class families - and also supports a tax of 45 percent for estates worth $3.5 million or more.

But that wouldn’t come close to solving the problem. So would Khazei support a broader tax hike? “Not for moderate income and low-income people.’’ Noting that Obama has ruled out any increase for families earning less than $250,000, Khazei adds: “I think we could look at going below that - but we have to start with an honest conversation with the American people.’’

For an approach that’s a bit bolder than that of his rivals, let’s award Khazei a Tsongas score of five.

That’s hardly stellar. Still, so far, Khazei comes closer to showing a little Tsongasian courage than any other Democrat in the race.

Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com.