Obama’s Budget Would Deepen Already Unprecedented Deficits
Everyone wants to know more about the budget and here is some key information with a chart from the Heritage Foundation and a video from the Cato Institute.
The President is responsible for submitting an annual budget to Congress and has the authority to veto legislation, including irresponsible spending. Most Administrations have run small but manageable deficits, but President Obama’s unprecedented budget deficits pose serious economic risks.
BUDGET DEFICITS AS A PERCENTAGE OF GDP, BY ADMINISTRATION
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Source: White House Office of Management and Budget.
The charts in this book are based primarily on data available as of March 2011 from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The charts using OMB data display the historical growth of the federal government to 2010 while the charts using CBO data display both historical and projected growth from as early as 1940 to 2084. Projections based on OMB data are taken from the White House Fiscal Year 2012 budget. The charts provide data on an annual basis except… Read More
Authors
Emily GoffResearch Assistant
Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy StudiesKathryn NixPolicy Analyst
Center for Health Policy StudiesJohn FlemingSenior Data Graphics Editor
Max Brantley went on another tyrade about raising taxes instead of cutting spending (“How to raise taxes,” Arkansas Times Blog, November 28, 2011). However, spending is the main problem and it appears that Democrats do not want to cut a dime. Instead, they blame Glover Norquist for all their problems.
WASHINGTON — Democrats are unanimous in charging that the debt-reduction supercommittee collapsed because Republicans refused to raise taxes. Apparently, Republicans are in the thrall of one Grover Norquist, the anti-tax campaigner, whom Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., called “the 13th member of this committee without being there.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid helpfully suggested “maybe they should impeach Grover Norquist.”
With that, Norquist officially replaces the Koch brothers as the great malevolent manipulator that controls the republic by pulling unseen strings on behalf of the plutocracy.
Nice theory. Except for the following facts:
•Sen. Tom Coburn last year signed on to the Simpson-Bowles tax reform that would have increased tax revenue by $1 trillion over a decade.
•During the debt-ceiling talks, House Speaker John Boehner agreed to an $800 billion revenue increase as part of a Grand Bargain.
•Supercommittee member Pat Toomey, a Club for Growth Republican, proposed increasing tax revenue by $300 billion as part of $1.2 trillion in debt reduction.
Leading, very conservative Republicans proposing tax increases. So why does the myth of the Norquist-controlled anti-tax monolith persist? You might suggest cynicism and perversity. Let me offer a more benign explanation: thickheadedness. Democrats simply can’t tell the difference between tax revenue and tax rates.
In deficit reduction, all that matters is tax revenue. The holders of our national debt care not a whit what tax rates yield the money to pay them back. They care about the sum.
The Republican proposals raise revenue, despite lowering rates, by opening a gusher of new income for the Treasury in the form of loophole elimination. For example, the Toomey plan eliminates deductions by $300 billion more than the reduction in tax rates “cost.” Result: $300 billion in new revenue.
The Simpson-Bowles commission — appointed by President Barack Obama and endorsed by Coburn — used the same formula. Its tax reform would lower tax rates at a “cost” of $1 trillion a year while eliminating loopholes that deprive the Treasury of $1.1 trillion a year. This would leave the Treasury with an excess — i.e., new tax revenue — of $100 billion a year, or $1 trillion over a decade.
Raising revenue through tax reform is better than simply raising rates, which Democrats insist upon with near religious fervor. It is more economically efficient because it eliminates credits, carve-outs and deductions that grossly misallocate capital. And it is more fair because it is the rich who can afford not only the sharp lawyers and accountants who exploit loopholes but the lobbyists who create them in the first place.
Yet the Democrats, who flatter themselves as the party of fairness, are instead obsessed with raising tax rates on the rich as a sign of civic virtue. This is perverse in three ways:
1) Raising rates gratuitously slows economic growth, i.e., expansion of the economic pie for everyone, by penalizing work and by retaining inefficiency-inducing loopholes.
2) We’re talking pennies on the dollar. Obama’s coveted Bush tax cut repeal would yield the Treasury, at the very most, $80 billion a year — offsetting 2 cents on the dollar of government spending ($3.6 trillion).
3) Hiking tax rates ignores the real drivers of debt, which, as Obama himself has acknowledged, are entitlements.
Has the president ever publicly proposed a single significant structural change in any entitlement? After Simpson-Bowles reported? No. In his February budget? No. In his April 13 budget “framework”? No. During the debt-ceiling crisis? No. During or after the supercommittee deliberations? No.
As regarding the supercommittee, Obama was AWOL — then immediately pounced on its failure by going on TV to repeat his incessantly repeated campaign theme of the do-nothing (Republican) Congress.
A swell slogan that fits nicely with the Norquist myth. Except for another inconvenient fact: It is the Republicans who passed — through the House, the only branch of government they control — a real budget that cut $5.8 trillion of spending over the next 10 years. Obama’s February budget, which would have increased spending, was laughed out of the Senate, voted down 97-0. As for the Democratic Senate, it has submitted no budget at all for 2 1/2 years.
Who, then, is do-nothing? Republicans should happily take on this absurd, and central, Democratic campaign plank. Bring Simpson-Bowles to the House floor and pass the most radical of its three deficit-reduction alternatives.
Dare the Senate Democrats to vote down the grandest of all bargains. Dare Obama to veto his own debt commission. Dare the Democrats to actually do something about debt.
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.
Therefore, I went to the website and sent this email below:
Balance the budget by 2014 without raising taxes. Budget deficits are merely a symptom of two larger problems: a sluggish economy and runaway spending. Restoring economic growth requires low tax rates, and runaway spending is the most dangerous threat to pro-growth tax relief. Balancing the budget with spending cuts will improve the country’s ability to deal with the massive Social Security and Medicare liabilities that will come due when the baby boomers retire.
Under President Obama’s budget, Washington is projected to spend $3,618 billion, raise $2,118 billion, and run a $1,500 billion deficit in 2010.
Tax revenues strongly correlate with economic growth. The recession is chiefly responsible for collapsing revenues.
Spending has increased 19 percent faster than inflation since 2008.
The projected $1,500 billion budget deficit represents a post–World War II record 10.3 percent of GDP. More than 41 cents of every dollar Washington spends in 2010 will be borrowed
As an author who has just published a book on the crisis of Western civilization, I couldn’t really have asked for more: simultaneous crises in Athens and Rome, the cradles of the West’s law, languages, politics, and philosophy.
So why should Americans care about any of this? The first reason is that, with American consumers still in the doldrums of deleveraging, the United States badly needs buoyant exports if its economy is to grow at anything other than a miserably low rate. And despite all the hype about trade with the Chinese, U.S. exports to the European Union are nearly three times larger than to China.
Until March, it seemed as if exports to Europe were on an upward trajectory. But the euro-zone crisis has stopped that. Governments that ran up excessive debts have seen their borrowing costs explode. Unable to devalue their currencies, they’ve been forced to adopt austerity measures—cutting spending or hiking taxes—in a vain effort to reduce their deficits. The result has been Depression economics: shrinking economies and unemployment rates approaching 20 percent.
As a result, according to the new president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, a “double dip” recession in Europe is now all but inevitable. And that’s lousy news for U.S. exporters targeting the EU market.
But there’s more. Europe’s problem is not just that governments are overborrowed. There are an unknown number of European banks that are effectively insolvent if their holdings of government bonds are “marked to market”—in other words, valued at their current rock-bottom market prices. In our interconnected financial world, it would be very odd indeed if no U.S. institutions were affected by this. Just as European institutions once loaded up on assets backed with subprime U.S. mortgages, so most big U.S. banks have at least some exposure to euro-zone bonds or banks. One institution—MF Global, run by former Goldman Sachs CEO Jon Corzine—just blew up because of its highly levered euro bets. Others are biting their fingernails because it is suddenly far from clear that the credit-default swaps they have bought as insurance against, say, a Greek default are worth the paper they are written on.
But the third reason Americans should care about Europe is more important even than the risk of a renewed financial crisis. It is the danger that what is happening in Europe today could ultimately happen here. Just a few months ago, almost nobody was worried about Italy’s vast debt, which amounts to 121 percent of GDP. Then suddenly panic set in, and Italy’s borrowing costs exploded from 3.5 percent to 7.5 percent.
Today the U.S. gross federal debt stands at around 100 percent of GDP. Four years ago it was 62 percent. By 2016 the International Monetary Fund forecasts it will be 115 percent. Economists who should know better insist that this is not a problem because, unlike Italy, the United States can print its own money at will. All that means is that the U.S. reserves the right to inflate or depreciate away its debt. If I were a foreign investor—and half the debt in public hands is held by foreigners—I would not find that terribly reassuring. At some point I might demand some compensation for that risk in the form of … higher rates.
Athens, Rome, Washington … The shortest route from imperial capital to tourist destination is precisely this death spiral of debt.
Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University and a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. He is also a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His Latest book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, will be published in November.
Let’s take a pause from the cascade of negativity on this day of thanks and be grateful that 90 percent of Americans have jobs—and that we’re not Europe, says Zachary Karabell.
As we turn to Thanksgiving, let us a pause for a moment and take a time-out from the storm of gloom that has descended across this land and so many others. If you pay even passing attention to politics, to the economy, to Wall Street, or to public sentiment, you know the mood is bleak. The litany of woes is well known—ranging from a sclerotic and debt-plagued Europe to a dysfunctional Congress to a possibly slowing China to high unemployment and widespread dissatisfaction with an economic system of uneven rewards. It is enough to make Agnewesque nattering nabobs of negativism proud.
The cascade of negativity, however, is starting to detach from the lived reality of many, many millions—and I don’t mean the 1 percent tucked away in gated communities surrounded by the tumbleweeds of foreclosure. There is much to be thankful for, and all is not as bad as it seems.
First, for Americans, we can be thankful that we are not Europe. This is not a gratuitous dig at European problems, which if they become much more severe will most certainly be our problems. It is, however, a recognition that the task facing Europe is much more complex than whatever challenges America faces. Americans have both the material question of how to sustain affluence and the existential one of what America is to be in a post-American world. But we do at least have one currency and one government, however inept it is. Europe is engaged in a multi-decade experiment to weave together disparate nations that share anything but a warm and fuzzy collective history, and trying to do so now under financial duress. Let us hope they succeed and give thanks that we are not them.
We can also be thankful that about 90 percent of Americans have jobs, 90 percent are current on their mortgages, and 90 percent are current on their credit-card payments. Yes, many of those jobs are poorly paid and deadening, agreed and acknowledged. But contrary to the common refrain, the vast majority of Americans take on debt they can afford, within their means, and work hard to create lives for themselves and their families. This is not a statistical portrait of a profligate people or of a nation drowning in debt.
And we can give thanks that the numerical construct called the “U.S. economy” is growing slightly rather than contracting mightily, and that unemployment remains structurally high but is not getting structurally higher. Solving a structural problem requires time and space, neither of which exists when the system is shedding jobs by the millions, as it was in 2009. While our political class has demonstrated little aptitude for addressing these issues, the American economy at least is stable, even as it remains troubled.
There are also pockets of innovation and imagination that continue to amaze and intrigue, with a particularly high concentration in Silicon Valley. Apple is only the most noticeable exemplar. And though the economic virtue of social media has yet to be demonstrated, the combination of venture capital and thousands of startup companies trying to give people the tools to reduce energy consumption or find the latest app to fit their needs is a potent one. The problem is that there aren’t more such pockets, but we at least should celebrate those we have.
We also can recognize that for the world as a whole, this remains the most robust period of wealth creation and poverty annihilation the human race has ever known. From the engine that is China to swaths of sub-Saharan Africa that are finally emerging from their decades of despair, from the favelas of Rio to the teeming apartment blocks of Mumbai to the tumultuous changes of the Arab Spring, much of the world has moved beyond the United States and Europe and is shaping its own destiny.
The vast majority of Americans take on debt they can afford, within their means, and work hard to create lives for themselves and their families.
Carolyn Kaster / AP Photo
While Americans at times seem at sea in the midst of these changes, it is a world that generations of Americans strove to create, a world where ideas, goods, and, yes, money flow relatively freely. The downside is greater systemic risk; the upside is an explosion of energy and growth. The downside is relentless pressure on wages in the affluent world and real strains on the environment; the upside is the demonstrable ease of producing food, goods, and diversion on an unprecedented scale. None of this is perfect, far from it, and we all know the problems. But we live in a dynamic era, though you wouldn’t know that listening to the grim words and watching the grim faces of the denizens of the old capitals of the world, in Washington, Berlin, Tokyo, Paris, and London.
So as financial markets roil and dance on the edge, and as the political season shines bright lights on all that ails us, as Europe engages in a slow-motion train wreck that is still likely to end well short of our worst fears, in the real world of real people, much of this is both abstract and unreal. The anxiety is ubiquitous, but most people are simply going about their lives, striving and often succeeding in a world that is far less dire than our daily dose of commentary would suggest.
When I think of all our hard earned money that has been wasted on stimulus programs it makes me sad. It has never worked and will not in the future too. Take a look at a few thoughts from Cato Institute:
On Thursday night, the president laid out his plan for job creation, a $447 billion stimulus proposal, most of which we have seen before. After all, if Congress passes this new round of government spending, it would be the seventh such stimulus program since the recession began. George W. Bush pushed through two of them, totaling some $200 billion, and Obama already has enacted four more, with a total price tag of roughly $1.3 trillion.
The result: Three years and $1.5 trillion of spending later, we are back to the same gallimaufry of failed ideas. Among the worst:
3. Bailing Out the Teachers Unions. The president’s plan calls for spending $35 billion in grants to states to hire or retain some 280,000 teachers. The president wants to spend another $30 billion to repair and modernize school buildings, with the catch that school districts that accept the funds are prohibited from laying off any teachers. Spending on school building and repair has already increased by 150% over the last two decades, without either improving education or generating many jobs. And the greatest threat to teacher retention is not a lack of federal aid, but burdensome labor contracts.
4. More Infrastructure Spending. Like all the stimulus bills before it, the president’s latest proposal calls for still more pork barrel spending for “infrastructure.” One begins to wonder why we haven’t paved over the entire country by now. No doubt there are roads and bridges in need of repair, but the ability of the federal government to sort out good projects from bad is debatable at best. And the president is once again planning to plow money into such dubious projects as high-speed rail.
5. More Tax Hikes. Worst of all, the president plans to pay for all this new spending by — you guessed it — raising taxes on businesses and high-income Americans. The president, once again, referred to “millionaires and billionaires” in his speech, but his actual proposal calls for raising taxes on families earning as little as $250,000 per year. In places like New York, that’s not the “super rich.” In addition, many of these tax hikes would fall on small businesses. The president’s jobs plan, then, is to tax exactly those people and businesses that create jobs. And all this is on top of the new taxes and regulations that the Obama administration has already pushed through.
It’s not just the details of the president’s proposal that are wrongheaded, it’s the basic concept. The real drags on our economy have nothing to do with the failure of government to spend enough. The federal government is now spending roughly 24% of GDP. State and local governments are spending another 10% to 15%, meaning government at all levels is spending roughly 40 cents out of every dollar produced in this country. If government spending brought about prosperity, we should be experiencing a golden age.
The president’s plan is a bit like having someone break your leg then give you a crutch and call it a stimulus. Might it not be better to avoid breaking your leg in the first place? It’s time to stop spending, cut taxes, reduce our debt, and rollback burdensome regulation. That will generate far more jobs than any government jobs program.
When it comes to stimulus, the seventh time is not the charm.
Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (Part 18 Thirsty Thursday, Open letter to Senator Pryor)
Dear Senator Pryor,
Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion).
On my blog www.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. However, I did not see any of them in the recent debt deal that Congress adopted. Now I am trying another approach. Every week from now on I will send you an email explaining different reasons why we need the Balanced Budget Amendment. It will appear on my blog on “Thirsty Thursday” because the government is always thirsty for more money to spend.
In the immediate term, Congress should address this problem by pursuing a reform path that drives down federal spending and borrowing and gets to a balanced budget. Saving the American Dream is Heritage’s plan to do just that: balancing the federal budget in 10 years and keeping it balanced in the future—without raising taxes or neglecting our national defense. Starting immediately, Congress should take every opportunity to cut and cap federal spending, and that includes addressing the unsustainable costs of America’s entitlement programs.
A part of the long-term agenda to rein in government is an appropriate and sound amendment to the Constitution that would keep federal spending under control in subsequent years. Indeed, the principal reason for adopting a balanced budget constitutional amendment is to limit the size and scope of the federal government by limiting its spending.
Proponents have long advocated this extraordinary step because other methods of controlling spending—by rule or statute—have broken down. What was once considered part of the nation’s “unwritten” constitution—that as a rule the government should not spend beyond its means—has been lost. A constitutional rule, if properly written and enforced, would have more power than any legislative mechanism for maintaining a limit on spending.
As Heritage’s David Addington has previously stated, a BBA should do three core things.
First, it should control spending, taxation, and borrowing by capping annual spending and requiring Congress to act by supermajority votes if Members wish to raise taxes. These requirements are especially necessary under current circumstances—prior to having seriously reduced spending and reformed entitlement programs, the main drivers of the country’s debt.
Second, it should allow Congress by supermajority votes to waive temporarily compliance with the balanced budget requirement when it is essential to national security—the one core function that is the federal government’s exclusive constitutional responsibility.
Third, it should provide for its own enforcement, specifically excluding courts from any enforcement and preventing government from just borrowing more money to meet the BBA requirement.
A BBA without these provisions doesn’t address the underlying spending problem, puts pressure on Congress to increase taxes or issue more debt rather than cut spending or reform entitlements, and invites unelected judges to insert themselves even more in the policymaking process. Which is to say that, rather than simplifying matters, a weak BBA would likely make the situation much worse.
Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (Part 16 Thirsty Thursday, Open letter to Senator Pryor) Dear Senator Pryor, Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion). On my […]
Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (Part 15 Thirsty Thursday, Open letter to Senator Pryor) Dear Senator Pryor, Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion). On my […]
Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (Part 14 Thirsty Thursday, Open letter to Senator Pryor) Dear Senator Pryor, Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion). On my […]
Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (Part 13 Thirsty Thursday, Open letter to Senator Pryor) Office of the Majority Whip | Balanced Budget Amendment Video In 1995, Congress nearly passed a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget. The Balanced Budget Amendment would have forced the federal government to live within its […]
Andrew Demillo pointed this out and also Jason Tolbert noted: PRYOR OPPOSES THE OBAMA JOBS BILL THAT HE VOTED TO ADVANCE Sen. Mark Pryor has been traveling around the state touting a six-part jobs plan that he says “includes a number of bipartisan initiatives, is aimed at creating jobs by setting the table for growth, encouraging new […]
I have been blogging for 10 months now and have had over 110,000 hits on my blog. Posts encouraging Senator Pryor to cut spending have been responsible for more posts than any other subject. It has got the most hits too. I am hopeful that Senator Pryor will either pay attention to the people or […]
Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (Part 17 Thirsty Thursday, Open letter to Senator Pryor) Dear Senator Pryor, Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion). On my […]
Dear Senator Pryor, Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion). On my blog http://www.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. However, […]
Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (Part 11 Thirsty Thursday, Open letter to Senator Pryor) Dear Senator Pryor, Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion). On my […]
The old political playbook will not work this time around. Bragging on Obamacare and the first stimulus in Arkansas will not do much for Pryor in 2014. In this clip above Senator Pryor praises Mike, Vic and Marion. (All three of those men bailed out and Marion and Vic were replaced by Republicans and in […]
It’s the Spending: Washington has a spending problem.While tax revenue is projected to climb above its historical average level of 18.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2021, government spending is projected to increase to 26.4% in the same period. Driven by the three largest entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid— total federal spending will explode from 24% of GDP in 2011 to nearly 35% by 2035.
Government Debt Growing at Unsustainable Levels: Publicly held debt more than doubled from $5 trillion at the end of fiscal year (FY) 2007 to a staggering $10.1 trillion in FY 2011. Today it’s nearly 70% of GDPand is on track to hit 185% of GDP by 2035.
Our National Defense Is at Risk: Defense spending, excluding war costs, is only 3.7% of GDP—under the 60-year average—and will be cut further under the Budget Control Act, exacerbating our readiness crisis.
Solutions for the Super Committee
Set Priorities and Make Bold Decisions:Whether it reaches its $1.5 trillion target or goes beyond it, the super committee should be bold. At the same time, it should avoid flawed policies that will do more harm than good. Federal spending and revenue should be balanced at the level of tax revenues to avoid deficits adding to national debt.
Fully Fund National Defense:Providing for America’s national defense is the primary duty of the federal government. The super committee should ensure full funding for America’s armed forces rather than making additional cuts.
Transform Entitlements:Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are the largest drivers of medium- and long-term deficits and debt. These programs should be structurally reformed to make them financially sustainable while also assuring economic security for the nation’s seniors and younger generations.
Do Not Raise Taxes: Tax hikes should be a nonstarter to any deficit reduction plan. They harm the economy and keep government spending high. Merely discussing the prospect of tax hikes makes America’s businesses less willing to take risks, buy new equipment, expand, and hire new employees.
How to Rein in Long-Term Spending
Repeal Obamacare: The health care law’s Medicaid expansion and costly new health care entitlement are partially offset by unwise cuts to Medicare provider reimbursement rates and new taxes, but it will nevertheless add to deficit spending. These flawed policies will exacerbate existing concerns in health care entitlement programs.
Reform Medicare:Medicare should be transformed from an unsustainable, open-ended, defined-benefit program to a premium-support program that allows retirees to select health plans that best suit their needs in a competitive market. This will spur better care at lower cost.
Reform Medicaid:Medicaid should be converted to provide direct support to low-income families to purchase their own private health insurance, and states should be given greater latitude to administer the program to better serve the most vulnerable members of society: the elderly and disabled.
Reform Social Security: Social Security benefits should be preserved for today’s seniors, and the program should be transformed to real insurance by moving away from a stream of benefits for every single American to a flat benefit above poverty targeting those who need it the most.
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.
Therefore, I went to the website and sent this email below:
Stop digging. Federal spending is growing at its fastest rate since the 1960s, but many of the same lawmakers that are calling for spending restraint also support legislation to expand highway spending by 72 percent, increase special education spending by 151 percent, and once again extend unemployment benefits. Each of these spending increases will dig the United States deeper into its financial hole and necessitate even more difficult choices later. Lawmakers should cut spending now.
Obama’s Budget Worsens Debt Problem, but The Heritage Plan Solves It
Federal Budget Deficits Will Reach Levels Never Seen Before in the U.S.
The Daily Hatch 