The Freedom Bulletin

Photo by Gage Skidmore

Check out the Plan to Restore America if you haven’t already. What I love about Ron Paul is that he doesn’t just talk about balanced budgets, freedom, and the Constitution; he actually has has concrete, bold ideas to change America for the better. Paul’s budget plan would…

• Cut $1 trillion in federal spending in one year
• Eliminate the departments of Energy, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, and Interior
• Eliminate the TSA
• End foreign aid
• Repeal the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare)
• Audit the Federal Reserve
• Allow people to opt out of Social Security

None of these things is surprising if you are familiar with Paul and his libertarian brand of Republicanism, but it’s great to see them all spelled out together in one report, with graphs and tables to support them. Bruce Fein wrote a great column explaining the plan.

Late Friday night, barely averting a government shutdown, President Barack Obama, Speaker John Boehner, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reached a compromise budget deal which included $38.5 million in cuts. While this is not as much as the $62 million that Tea Party members pushed for, or the $100 billion that Speaker Boehner mentioned after the 2010 election, it is a victory for small government.

The good things about the budget:

• The $32 billion in cuts that Boehner originally proposed were called “extreme” and “draconian,” yet Democrats ended up agreeing to even more
• The budget bill requires audits of many of Obama’s programs, denies additional spending on the IRS, and cuts $2 billion from the Department of Defense
• It is the largest spending cut in American history

The bad things about the budget:

• It does not cut Pell Grants, medical research, the Race to the Top initiative, PBS, or NPR
• It only slightly cuts foreign aid
• $18 billion of the cuts come from programs whose budgets “run largely on autopilot” and might not actually be spent anyway
• The debate about cutting funding to Planned Parenthood still has to be resolved

Considering our national debt of $14 trillion, the budget deal might be a baby step toward solving America’s money woes and restoring freedom and justice, but baby steps are better than nothing. Instead of our leaders arguing about how much additional spending to add, they are arguing about how much to cut. Now that is an encouraging change.

For the first time since current budget rules were enacted in 1974, Congress will not pass a budget blueprint this year. “It isn’t possible to debate and pass a realistic, long-term budget until we’ve considered the bipartisan commission’s deficit-reduction plan, which is expected in December,” said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD). Instead, Congress plans to pass a “budget enforcement resolution,” which only concerns next year’s budget instead of planning for the next five to ten years, as a budget blueprint would.

I don’t know about you, but to me, this doesn’t look like a good sign for fiscal responsibility. Minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) seems to agree.

Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) just agreed to end his standoff against the temporary extension of unemployment benefits. Bunning has been single-handedly blocking the passage of a 30-day extension of benefits, which expired on Monday. Today, however, he agreed to a deal to pass the bill.

Democrats and even some Republicans have been harshly criticizing Bunning for blocking the legislation. However, I think Bunning was brave for sticking to his principles even if it makes him unpopular. Bunning opposed the $10 billion extension because the government can’t afford it, and  its cost was not offset. I agree with him. Although Bunning’s actions resulted in people going for a couple days without unemployment benefits, these people don’t really have the right to complain, because they don’t have a fundamental right to free money that is essentially stolen from other people.

What Bunning’s critics don’t seem to understand is that fiscal responsibility is important. The government has no business passing spending bills if we don’t have the money to pay for them. Right now our national debt is over $12 trillion. We need to cut government spending as much as possible so that we can start to pay off the debt. To increase spending without cutting it elsewhere is just ridiculous, and Bunning is right to oppose it on principle.

So although Bunning ultimately gave up on his quest to block the bill, he sent a strong message: that the government needs to spend less. I think it is a credit to our system of government that it allows one person to stand up for what they believe in, and I admire Bunning for doing so.

Because of Deval Patrick’s budget cuts, the Franklin Park Zoo may have to close, and some of the animals there may have to be killed.

I find it outrageous that the Massachusetts government is spending large amounts of money on things like free stuff for people who aren’t even citizens, STD prevention, and teen pregnancy prevention, but they are going to just let animals die. And the T has to raise its fares because the government decided that free things that only poor people or people with babies are allowed to have are more important than public transportation, which benefits everyone.

Things like zoos, public transportation, museums, and libraries should be made financially self-sustaining through fares, admissions, and membership fees if at all possible, but it is much more justifiable to spend tax money on these things than on wealth redistribution programs. This is because welfare programs are discriminatory in that they only help people whom the government has decided are eligible, usually those whose incomes are below certain levels. Zoos and public transportation benefit everyone who chooses to use them.

The state government should cut $14 billion, mostly in welfare programs, as I outlined here: The Massachusetts budget. It’s completely wrong that they are raising the sales tax, cutting from zoos, and forcing T fares to go up, while barely touching $14 billion worth of unnecessary, unjust welfare programs. If they made all the cuts they should, the state could lower taxes (not just avoid raising them) and still have enough money for zoos and $8 billion to give to the T in order to get rid of its debt and hopefully enable it to not need tax revenue in the future.

Governor Patrick and the state legislature really need to get their priorities straight.

Finally, I have created my own budget for the state of Massachusetts. What I did was went through the fiscal year 2009 budget and listed everything that could be cut without making the government unable to function. I was able to cut over $14 billion, much more than the $4 billion deficit that the state legislature faced before they raised the sales tax. Because the budget is so long, I didn’t get to read everything through as carefully as I would have liked to and there were some items that I didn’t really know what they were, so there’s probably more that I could cut if I looked closer.

Anyways, why not check out my state budget?

…would be to raise the income tax. So, what do you know, I opened up the Globe this morning to find an editorial in support of just that.

This editorial, by state senators Sonia Chang-Diaz and Jamie Eldridge, has so many things wrong with it that it will be hard to list them all. But I am going to try.

First, they write that “there are no easy solutions” and that “cutting alone will not get us out of this budget crisis.” Actually, cutting is a fairly easy solution, and it will get us out of the budget crisis if we cut enough. There is $3 billion less in revenue then at this time last year, so cutting $3 billion will solve the budget problem. It will be unpopular and will be painful to some people, but it is the right thing to do.

Then, they write that “taxes are the way that we, as a society, pay for the things we value: education, police and firefighters, and public transportation. Each day we rely upon government services, public infrastructure, and state regulation, paid for by our taxes, in order to allow us to work and raise a family.” I think it’s more accurate to say that taxes are a way that other people force me to pay for the things that they value. In addition to education, police, firefighters, and transportation, taxes also pay for free food, housing, cars, medical services, contraceptives, and baby supplies for poor people. I don’t know about you, but I don’t value free stuff that I am not allowed to get because I have too much money, nor do I value free stuff that I would never use (like the last two). Plus, firefighters, and possibly also education and transportation, can and should be privatized so that they are not paid for with taxes. Yes, we do use public infrastructure, but this, along with police, the military, and the court system, are the only things that should be funded with taxes. Using the word “rely” is going a little too far; that makes it sound like people are getting something they don’t deserve just because roads and laws exist. Also, not everyone raises a family.

Next: “A fair tax system asks residents to contribute to the cost of government services based on their ability to pay – and few people would consider a tax system to be fair if the poorer you are, the greater proportion of your income you pay in taxes.” No, a fair tax system asks residents to contribute based on how many services they use or how good of a person they are, or asks each resident to contribute the same amount. I guess I am one of those “few people,” because I consider a lump sum tax to be the fairest tax.

“Of course, there is nothing more regressive than a budget cut, particularly to programs that help the most vulnerable among us.” Why does that make budget cuts bad? And what do you mean by vulnerable? Vulnerable to what? “Poor,” “sick,” or “badly-off” would be a better word. Programs that only help those whom the government have decided are vulnerable are discriminatory against those who aren’t vulnerable.

“We applaud the House on its tough vote to raise the sales tax, because any means of raising revenue right now is a better solution than drastic cuts to vital services.” Actually, it’s the exact opposite. Any cut is a better solution than an increase in revenue.

“Because the income tax is more progressive, it relies more heavily on those who can most afford to pay it.” Why is that good?

“There are also ways we could modify the income tax to make it even more progressive.” Great idea! Let’s take something that is unfair and make it even worse!

“We rank in the bottom half of all states in terms of the overall amount of taxes we pay as a share of personal income.” That’s a good thing. Wouldn’t you want to keep it that way or even improve? I guess not if you’re a Democrat.

In short, raising the income tax is the absolute worst thing Massachusetts could do to solve the budget crisis. Chang-Diaz and Eldridge should be ashamed of themselves for advocating something so immoral and unfair.

Note: Sometime in the next few days I will put up a list of things that I would cut from the state budget, to show that it is possible. The budget is so long that it’ll take a little while to go through it all, but I hope to have my budget up ASAP.