The United States budget is a joke and an embarrassing one at that. This morning, I read a number of articles regarding the latest spending bills. What struck me the most is the across-the-board increases in spending. With high unemployment continuing to persist, our government can expect less revenue. Yet, we are increasing spending while decreasing revenue. If that isn’t the very definition of insane, I don’t know what is.
We, as taxpayers, should demand that our government manage its finances just like any company or individual is required to. We should institute a mandatory ten percent across-the-board cut to the budgets of every federal agency with certain exceptions for defense. This is doable. Raises for federal employees could be dropped. Federal employees could shoulder more of their own healthcare costs. Congress could drop pension plan contributions for former members of Congress while current members of Congress could forgo this year’s contributions. A mandatory furlough program could be instituted and the federal workforce could be reduced by three to five percent. The repaid TARP funds could be applied to the federal deficit, as originally intended, instead of being “reappropriated” to a phony jobs bill. We could increase taxes on the top 1% of wage earners, set taxes on hedge funds, and legalize marijuana with a 100% federal tax. The only area of the budget where the cuts would be off limits would be for our military personnel and hardware. These are simple changes that any good corporation would institute. Why can’t our federal government?
Federal employees, members of Congress and the President included, need to be better stewards of the people’s money. Every day, regular people are losing their homes, their jobs, and their benefits. Many companies have forgone salary increases, significantly reduced benefits, eliminated positions, and introduced furloughs. Yet, these things don’t apply to our federal government. That isn’t being a good steward of the people’s money. That is nothing more than highway robbery. Yes, I am accusing those in Congress and the President of robbing “We, the People”.
With a projected deficit over one trillion for fiscal year 2010, yes with a “T”, it is time and long overdue that we cut, cut, cut. After instituting mandatory cuts, we should begin the process of surgical cuts as well. There is waste galore in our federal government. We should take a holistic approach instead of an agency-by-agency approach in order to find ways to maximize and pool federal resources in order to get the most out of our spending. Just imagine how much duplication exists in our government. No matter what, it is time for us to pass a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution. Congress should not be allowed to legally run a deficit unless the spending that would create a deficit is for defense and defense only. And even then, we need to ask ourselves why we have military bases all over the world. At some point, we can’t be the world’s police. We must defend America and America only.