CRAIGforCONGRESS
Missouri's 7th District, U.S. House of Representatives

 

 

 

Congressional Issues 2008
DOMESTIC CHAOS,
GOVERNMENT STYLE
The Federal Budget
The CATO Institute says that the 110th Congress should 
enact a peace and prosperity budget that

  • balance the budget without raising taxes;

  • reduce domestic discretionary spending by more than $350 billion, thereby cutting the discretionary budget from 7.9 percent of GDP to 5 percent;
  • reform Social Security by moving toward a system of individual savings accounts;
  • reform Medicare to cut costs, and freeze Medicaid spending at current levels and distribute the funds to states as unrestricted block grants;
  • establish a "sunset" commission to automatically review all federal programs on a rotating basis and propose major reforms and terminations;
  • change the rules of the budget process to make it easier to keep spending under control; and
  • institute a strong spending cap that does not allow government spending to grow faster than population plus inflation.

Specifically, Congress should:

  • reduce discretionary spending from 7.1 percent of gross domestic product to 5 percent with program terminations, privatization, management reforms, and transfer of programs to the states;

  • reform Social Security by moving toward a system of individual savings accounts;

  • reform Medicare and Medicaid to cut costs and increase efficiency; not add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare unless there is a full one-for-one cost reduction elsewhere in the program;

  • establish a ‘‘sunset’’ commission to automatically review all federal programs on a rotating basis and propose major reforms and terminations;

  • privatize all government-operated businesses, including Amtrak, the U.S. Postal Service, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the four power marketing administrations;

  • privatize activities in all federal agencies that are commercial in nature, such as air traffic control, marketing support for agriculture, loan and insurance programs for exporters, and research for the energy industry;

  • sell excess asset holdings (land, buildings, and inventories) of federal departments such as Interior, Agriculture, and Defense; and

  • support aggressive management reforms in the federal bureaucracy, including expanding authority to fire poorly performing workers.

  • reduces the size of government from 20 to 15 percent of gross domestic product over five years,

Kevin Craig promises:

"As a candidate for public office, I promise that, if elected:
"I will vote small government. Every issue. Every time. No exceptions. No excuses.
"I will actively and ambitiously initiate and support actions to make government small.
"Specifically, I promise:

  1. I will sponsor, advance, and vote for bills and legislation to shrink the size, power, spending, taxes, debt, and liability of today's Big Government.
  2. I will introduce, support, and vote only for government budgets that are smaller than this year's budget.
  3. I will vote against every government budget that spends the same amount or more than this year's budget.
  4. I will introduce and vote for legislation that repeals or reduces today's Big Government Programs.
  5. I will vote against all new or expanded government programs, all tax increases, and any new debt.
  6. I will vote against any bill that I have not read and thought through.
  7. No communication from me, my representatives, or my staff will contradict or violate the Small Government Pledge for Candidates.
  8. I will endorse and support only candidates who take the Small Government Pledge or whose promises and actions are consistent with the Small Government Pledge. I will never support, directly or indirectly, a Big Government candidate, politician, or proposal.
  9. I will be accountable to voters. Upon request, I will make public every vote I cast while in office."

Bureau of the Public Debt : The National Debt To the Penny
updated daily

This figure now surpasses Ten Trillion Dollars.
This figure, if announced by a corporation on the New York Stock Exchange, would result in jail terms for its accountants, because this figure does not include trillions of dollars the government owes Social Security recipients, Medicare recipients, and many others. Last year a paper by a researcher for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis warned that a ballooning budget deficit and pension-welfare timebomb has created a $65.9 trillion fiscal gap that will force the United States into bankruptcy. But in May of this year, the CEO of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank updated the statistics:

Politicians have promised voters
nearly $100 TRILLION
in government benefits
which the government cannot pay for.
This is fraudulent and unethical behavior.
Politicians will promise you anything just to get your vote.

"Lawmakers realize the importance of honesty in accounting, so they have established clear accounting guidelines for others to follow. However, they, themselves, go by a much more relaxed standard. If a businessman were to go by the standards lawmakers apply to themselves, he would wind up in jail." So writes Ken Connor in HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE - Congress Is Beating Enron at Its Own Game.

A recent poll indicates that a majority of Americans believe they could do a better job of balancing the government budget than the government does. The government does not seem to be bound by the ordinary budgetary considerations that ordinary families have to live by.

Neal Boortz has suggested attaching "The Boortz Addendum" to every appropriation bill offered in Congress. This addendum would read something like this:

Every sponsor or co-sponsor of this legislation hereby affirms his or her belief that the need for the federal government of the United States to spend taxpayer funds on the purposes outlined herein is of greater importance and urgency than any spending needs which the party or parties who actually earned these funds may have; such needs being, but not necessarily limited to, spending for medical care, child care, housing, food, clothing, transportation, education, insurance, savings and retirement planning, and religious tithes or conscientious charity. 

It became common during the Clinton Administration to speak of government spending as an "investment." Congress might also therefore attach the following to each spending bill:

By voting for this legislation I hereby affirm my belief that the information and knowledge possessed by me and 434 other Congressman-"investors" is greater than the collective knowledge and information possessed by a Free Market of 150 million individual investors, pension fund managers, insurance company executives, mutual fund administrators, and brokers, all of whom do not have the luxury of obtaining investment funds by passing a law, but must earn their investment dollars.

Congress must eventually change the fundamental nature of government services from compulsory to fee-for-service. Those who benefit from a service should be required to pay for it, not those who do not benefit. The force of taxation is a morally illegitimate method of funding services.

Government as a monopoly service provider must be eliminated. Competition for the provision of all government services must be permitted.

GOP: Gigantic Outlay Party

  1. Cutting the Federal Budget To Prevent U.S. Bankruptcy, Part I: Why It Needs To Be Done by Jim Grichar
  2. Cutting the Federal Budget To Prevent U.S. Bankruptcy, Part II: Cutting the Defense Budget by Jim Grichar
  3. Cutting the Federal Budget to Prevent U.S. Bankruptcy: Part III - Cutting Out HUD, NASA and Other Losers by Jim Grichar
  4. Cutting the Federal Budget to Prevent U.S. Bankruptcy: Part IV - Abolish the Department of Education by Jim Grichar
  5. Cutting the Federal Budget To Prevent U.S. Bankruptcy, Part V: Abolish the Agriculture Department by Jim Grichar
  6. Cutting the Federal Budget To Prevent U.S. Bankruptcy, Part VI: Trimming the Transportation Department by Jim Grichar
  7. Cutting the Federal Budget To Prevent U.S. Bankruptcy, Part VII: Privatize the Interior Department by Jim Grichar
  8. Cutting the Federal Budget To Prevent U.S. Bankruptcy, Part VIII: Cutting Energy and Commerce by Jim Grichar
  9. Cutting the Federal Budget To Prevent U.S. Bankruptcy, Part IX: Trimming Health and Human Services by Jim Grichar
  10. Cutting the Federal Budget To Prevent U.S. Bankruptcy, Part X: Homeland Security, Justice, and State – Not Exempt from Cuts by Jim Grichar
  11. Cutting the Federal Budget To Prevent U.S. Bankruptcy, Part XI: The Treasury Budget Can Also Be Cut by Jim Grichar
  12. Cutting the Federal Budget To Prevent U.S. Bankruptcy, Part XII by Jim Grichar
  13. Porkus Federalus: Will It Ever Be Cut? by Jim Grichar
FY 2008 Budget Proposal: Budget by Functional Category (washingtonpost.com)
next: Immediate Cuts

I appreciate your comments
Do you disagree with me?
I will thoughtfully, prayerfully, respectfully and
personally respond to your criticisms
email: comments@KevinCraig.US