Budget Season: The Most Expensive Time of the Year
Under President Obama’s watch, federal spending has continued to balloon unchecked and taxpayers now hold the bill for a staggering $15.6 trillion national debt. There has never been a more crucial time in the nation’s history to pass a fiscally responsible, deficit-reducing budget.
However, questions still linger: will this be the year that members of Congress finally buckle down and agree to pass a budget that will put the nation back on the path to fiscal sanity? Will they be satisfied with the Budget Control Act (BCA) as enacted last year or will they do more to reduce the deficit? Or will they continue to butt heads, look the other way, shirk their responsibilities, and fail to do what is best for taxpayers?
With debt and deficits now at record-breaking highs, the country is in desperate need of a plan that will cut spending, lower taxes, reform entitlements, and put the nation back on the path to prosperity. Americans can only hope that this will be the year lawmakers buckle down and do their jobs.
Members of Congress are currently considering the following plans, which include the good, the bad, and the ugly:
President Obama’s Budget: The Doomsday Scenario
President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget would increase the deficit by $6.4 trillion over 10 years. The budget calls for spending $3.8 trillion in FY 2013 and includes massive taxes hikes, tens of billions of dollars in additional spending on infrastructure and education, and no solutions for the nation’s broken and bankrupt entitlement programs.
Just when Americans thought the government could not possibly waste any more money, the President’s budget proposed a 5.5 percent increase in spending for three cultural grant-making agencies and three Washington, D.C. arts institutions, to the tune of $154.3 million.
President Obama has drawn up a budget to spend money the federal government does not have and tax Americans in a way they cannot afford. His budget would expedite the downward economic spiral and keep America on the path to bankruptcy; his miniscule efforts to cut spending and reform government will do nothing to remove the heavy burdens on taxpayers.
According to an analysis prepared by the House Republican Study Committee (RSC), if President Obama’s budget for FY 2013 is adopted as written, the federal budget “would never balance again.”
Last year, Senate Republicans forced a vote on President Obama’s 2012 budget and it got zero votes. The President did not get a single vote from a member of his own party because even they recognize that his budget is completely unsustainable. This year was no different; the House rejected his 2013 budget by a vote of 0-414.
House Democrats’ Budget: The Obama Wannabe Budget
This proposal is not quite as reckless as Obama’s, but it comes pretty close. The House Democrats’ $3.6 trillion budget was introduced by House Budget Committee Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) to counter the House Republicans’ budget. This plan adds $6 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years, compared to the $6.4 trillion added under the President’s plan. Rep. Van Hollen’s budget spends tens of billions of dollars on more unnecessary “stimulus” projects, ends nearly $1 trillion in Bush-era tax cuts on upper-income groups, upholds Obamacare, and preserves the nation’s depleted entitlement programs in their current forms.
Senate Democrats’ Budget: The Invisible Plan
Senate Democrats do not have a budget proposal (surprise!); their leaders claim the BCA is sufficient to set spending levels for FY 2013. The last time the Senate passed a budget was on April 29, 2009, which means that a budget has not been passed for more than 1,000 days. During this protracted period of indolence, the Senate Budget Committee has spent more than $12 million in taxpayer funds on staff salaries and other extraneous expenses, while Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office has spent in excess of $5 million.
Congress is statutorily obligated to pass a budget by October 1 of each year. The Senate Budget Committee has a job to do, just like everyone else. It is time they actually do it.
House Republicans’ Budget: The Fiscally Responsible Approach
The House Budget Committee’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 Blueprint for American Renewalwill put the nation back on the path to prosperity. Under the leadership of Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the committee has proposed to cut spending by $5 trillion relative to the President’s budget, bring deficits below 3 percent of GDP by 2015, and balance the budget and begin to produce annual surpluses by 2040.
The Blueprint for American Renewal would save billions of dollars by repealing Obamacare; lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent; unleashing American energy production to help lower costs, create jobs and reduce dependence on foreign oil; unwinding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; reforming welfare programs and devolving power to the states; removing special interest loopholes from the tax code; and lowering individual tax rates to promote economic growth.
Chairman Ryan’s budget also tackles the nation’s growing entitlement liabilities. The plan reforms Medicare through increased competition and a means-tested premium-support payment system, and provides for more individualized healthcare choices for Medicare recipients. Additionally, the plan would convert the federal share of Medicaid spending into a block grant, allowing states to have more flexibility to address their healthcare priorities.
While the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) would support even deeper cuts that would balance the budget in a decade or less, the perfect must not be the enemy of the good.
Republican Study Committee Budget: The Only Plan that Cuts, Caps, and Balances in Five Years
The RSC’s FY 2013 budget proposal is based on the principles of “Cut, Cap, and Balance,” and would reduce the size and scope of government, reform Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to ensure long-term sustainability, and balance the federal budget by 2017.
The RSC’s budget would set discretionary spending at $931 billion beginning in 2013; repeal Obamacare to eliminate $636 billion in additional spending over 10 years; and reduce non-defense discretionary spending from $377 billion in 2013 to $329 billion in 2022. Additionally, the RSC budget terminates wasteful and duplicative federal programs, prohibits earmarks, prevents any new tax increases, and reforms the tax code in line with the RSC’s Jobs Through Growth Act (H.R. 3400) in an effort to stimulate the economy and encourage job growth.
The RSC’s proposal also tackles the nation’s growing entitlement liabilities by proposing fiscally-sound reforms to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The budget would slowly phase-in an increase in the Medicare and Social Security eligibility ages for those born in 1958 or after; provide more healthcare choices for seniors and ultimately transition to a solvent premium-support system that resembles the health insurance plans enjoyed by members of Congress; and block-grant Medicaid, allowing states to have more autonomy over their healthcare priorities.
The RSC Budget is the only House proposal that balances within the Congressional Budget Office’s 10-year window; it also prohibits tax increases, cuts spending, and reforms government in a fiscally responsible manner.
CCAGW has endorsed both the House Republicans’ Budget and the RSC Budget. While neither is perfect, both would at least make major spending cuts (instead of recklessly increasing spending like the Democrats’ proposals), lower taxes (instead of raising them on struggling American businesses and taxpayers), reform broken entitlements (instead of ignoring the programs’ empty coffers), reduce the national deficit (instead of piling on to it), and come to balance in the foreseeable future (instead of never balancing…ever). These budgets will point the country in the right direction and lawmakers should work together to ensure passage of one of these plans. The era of reckless spending and rapidly rising debts must come to an end now.
— Erica Gordon
