Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
On May 11, 2011, I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:
Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner. I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.
I just did. I went to the Senator’s website and sent this below:
“Saving the American Dream: The Heritage Plan to Fix the Debt, Cut Spending, and Restore Prosperity,” Heritage Foundation, May 10, 2011 by Stuart Butler, Ph.D. , Alison Acosta Fraser and William Beachis one of the finest papers I have ever read. Over the next few days I will post portions of this paper, but I will start off with the section on federal spending reform.
Additional Major Spending Reforms
Summary
Over the past decade, Congresses and Presidents have undertaken a
surge of spending that has accelerated America’s speed along the road to
economic ruin. Since 2000, non-defense discretionary outlays have expanded 50 percent faster than inflation. Antipoverty spending has risen 83 percent faster than inflation, and other programs have grown rapidly. Despite multiple government audits that have shown many programs to be duplicative or ineffective, no significant federal program has been eliminated in more than a decade. Government continues to grow, financed by taxes on Americans and an explosion of borrowing that is imposing huge additional burdens on future generations.
Thus, although the major entitlement programs are the primary driver of
long-term spending and debt, Congress must take tough action on discretionary programs and smaller entitlement programs to reach a balanced budget and ensure that federal spending is smaller, more effective, and more efficient.
Under the Heritage plan, non-defense discretionary spending—appropriated programs such as foreign aid, K–12 education, transportation, health research, housing, community development, and veterans health care, which account for 4.5 percent of GDP—is reduced to 2.0 percent of GDP by 2021. These reforms will reduce the burden of government, thereby empowering families and entrepreneurs and promoting economic prosperity.
In addition, antipoverty spending is reformed. Obamacare is repealed, as
noted earlier, and replaced with an alternative solution to uninsurance and high costs. Agriculture and education programs are structurally reformed. The central goal for defense is to guarantee national security as prudently and economically as possible. With improvements in efficiency, we estimate that defense needs will require spending approximately 4 percent of GDP for the foreseeable future.
Rather than across-the-board spending reductions, which would not set true priorities for government, the Heritage plan follows six guidelines in designing reforms:
- The federal government should focus on performing a limited
number of appropriate governmental duties well while empowering state and local governments, which are closer to the people, to address local needs creatively in such areas as transportation, justice, job training, the environment, and economic development. - Functions that the private sector can perform more efficiently
should be transferred to the private sector. - Duplicative programs should be consolidated both to save money
and to improve government assistance. - Federal programs should more precisely target those who are
actually in need, which means reducing aid to large businesses and upper-income individuals who do not need taxpayer assistance and enforcing program eligibility rules better. - Outdated and ineffective programs should be eliminated.
- Waste, fraud, and abuse should be cleaned up wherever found.
By following these six guidelines, the Heritage plan produces a more
effective and efficient government and promotes stronger economic growth.
The Daily Hatch 