Issue Position: Government Spending

Issue Position

Government Spending: Saving our country from bankruptcy

Spending is simply out of control. You know the numbers. The deficit doubled in 2008, then doubled again in 2009. This year's deficit is the largest in history and the debt ceiling has been raised to a staggering $2 trillion. We are piling debt on our children and grandchildren at a rate that is unconscionable. The national debt will be $14 trillion at the end of the year, but total national debt including Social Security, Medicare and other structural debt puts us closer to $100 trillion.

We all balance our family budgets, and sometimes it's tough. Congress has been completely irresponsible where spending is concerned, and both parties are to blame. To begin to fight out-of-control spending, we should first take some common-sense advice: when you're in a hole stop digging. We should not spend the remaining stimulus funds or the repaid TARP funds. This alone would save about one trillion dollars - halving the deficit this year.

Then it gets tougher. We have to reform the earmark process. This will save billions more. We must address waste, fraud and abuse, which will save hundreds of billions more. Then we have to make some tough decisions. Do we really need a Department of Energy? Would our education dollars be better spent at the local level rather than at the federal level, and if they were, we would save billions since we'd no longer be running our tax dollars through Washington.

Any plan to control spending should first stop the hemorrhaging, work toward a balanced budget through actual spending cuts, and begin paying off our debt. To do less is to fail future generations by saddling them with mountains of debt.

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