[Dead Corpse]

I love trolls who come on here whining about GOP spending when they know DAMN well that Democrats have purposed TWICE and much spending.

[NJ_gent]

"I love trolls who come on here whining about GOP spending when they know DAMN well that Democrats have purposed TWICE and much spending."

Spending extreme amounts of money that we don't have on things like prescription drugs and the Dept of Education suddenly become ok if it's our guys doing it? Constructive criticism of mistakes is both healthy and productive if it's heeded.

[Ed Current]

You think the WSJ and REPUBLICAN Congressman Walter B. Jones are trolls?

How to Get Federal Spending Under Control

If they are serious about controlling spending, lawmakers should take the following five steps:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Freeze discretionary spending in 2005. Discretionary spending leaped 39 percent between 2001 and 2004. Even after excluding defense and costs related to September 11, discretionary spending is rising 7 percent annually. Do these agencies need yet another spending increase this year? Congress and the President should do what millions of families do: set priorities and balance each high-priority spending increase with a low-priority spending cut.
4. Reform entitlements. Spending cannot be restrained without reforming entitlements, which comprise two-thirds of all federal spending and threaten the country's long-term finances. (See Chart 2.) These programs are projected to grow by 6 percent annually for the next decade. Table 1, which displays the spending restraint needed to balance the budget by 2014, shows that all scenarios to balance the budget by 2014 require reducing the 6 percent annual growth rate of mandatory spending. Lawmakers seeking to rein in spending should put all entitlement spending on the table, including the 2003 Medicare drug bill and the 2002 farm bill.
5. Fix the budget process. Lawmakers still cling to a budget process created in 1974. Over the past 30 years, successive Congresses have punched this process full of holes, and federal spending has correspondingly tripled. The current budget process provides no workable tools to limit spending, no restrictions on passing massive costs onto future generations, and no incentive to bring all parties to the table early in the budget process to set a framework. The Family Budget Protection Act, authored by Representatives Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Paul Ryan (R-WI), Chris Chocola (R-IN), and Christopher Cox (R-CA), provides a comprehensive proposal for creating a budget process that reflects America's budget priorities and should be closely examined by anyone interested in budget reform.

[Ed Current]

Read what FreeRepublic is about!

Free Republic

A return to a strictly Constitutional form of federal government will automatically repeal and abolish all unconstitutional federal involvement in states issues such as: crime, health, education, welfare and the environment. The Tenth Amendment will again be in effect, which will bar all federal attempts at legislating social issues. This will also require that social programs such as Social Security, welfare and Medicare be repealed. So too, will most federal subsidies.