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.
