The Daily Hatch

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:

Here are a few more I just emailed to him myself:

• Expecting an economic boom to balance the budget. While recent tax cuts will likely aid economic growth and bring in new tax revenues, it is unrealistic to expect tax revenues to grow at the 9 percent annual rate necessary to balance the budget by 2014 under current spending trends. Balancing the budget requires spending restraint.
• Increasing spending through accounting gimmicks. Lawmakers tried to hide the 2004 spending increases by shifting budget authority between years, which is Congress’s equivalent of backdating its checks. These accounting gimmicks could not cover up the 9 percent increase in projected discretionary outlays for 2004. Lawmakers are already discussing an innovative gimmick to increase domestic spending in 2005: funding a large domestic spending increase by taking the money out of defense, knowing that an underfunded defense budget can be remedied later by substantially adding to the President’s planned 2005 supplemental defense bill. If lawmakers insist on these gimmicks, spending could again grow rapidly.
• Making only the easy spending cuts. Lawmakers often reject any spending cut that could offend someone. Yet every dollar government spends–no matter how wasteful–is received by someone who would be angry to lose these benefits. Every spending cut will offend somebody, and any easy cuts surely would have been made by now. Lawmakers who are serious about cutting spending should focus on the millions of taxpayers–both current and future–who are forced to sacrifice their financial well-being in order to fund ineffective federal program.
• • Federal spending has grown 62 percent faster than inflation since 2000.
  • Defense spending has grown 91 percent over its pre-9/11 trough, yet still remains well below the historical average as a percentage of the economy.
  • The expensive Medicare drug benefit played a large role in Medicare’s sharp cost increase.
  • Anti-poverty spending rose rapidly under President George W. Bush, and has risen again during the recession.
  • Unemployment spending is also up due to the recession.
  • Energy costs fluctuate yearly, so the rapid growth rate over 2000 is not indicative of a long-term trend.
  • Mortgage credit and deposit insurance costs were high in 2009 due to the financial and mortgage bailouts. The low (and occasionally negative) 2010 totals result from recipients repaying a portion of that spending.
  • Despite the new spending and deficits, record-low interest rates caused net interest costs to decline. Net interest spending will jump when interest rates rise back to normal levels.