You are viewing an old blog post! That means that links will be broken, and images may be missing.

February 21, 2011

The Federal Budget: $60 billion vs. $500 billion vs. $1.6 trillion vs. The Constitution

Quote of the Day: “There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.” — the late great Richard Feynman, super-genius

First, read my letter to Congress.

Second, see how Downsize DC is going to get serious about cancerous federal spending.

I sent the following letter to Congress using the campaign to “Cut Spending” in DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System.

I don’t consider the $60 billion budget cut that the House just passed to be a serious effort.

The irresponsible Republicans started in the wrong place, and the HYPER-irresponsible Democrats didn’t get started at all.

The Republicans should have used their House majority to pass a budget that cut the Federal State back to the size of the Constitution. In other words, the Republicans should have honored their oath of office. A Constitution-sized budget would be instantly balanced, and would have a surplus to pay down the debt and spur the economy by slashing taxes.

It doesn’t matter that the hyper-irresponsible Democrats in the Senate, and the Big Irresponsible in the White House, wouldn’t have gone along. The House Republicans still had a responsibility to make a Constitution-sized budget their starting point. Then . . .

When the Democrats blocked the Constitution-sized budget, House Republicans could have passed a second budget to balance the books immediately by cutting $1.4 trillion in cancerous bloat. This would have put us back to where we were in the Clinton era. Did we have too little “government” then? I think not. The problem is that we have a cancerous “government” now.

If the Democrats blocked the second budget too, then the House Republicans could have passed a third budget, making the $500 billion dollars in cuts proposed by Senator Rand Paul.

The Republicans are irresponsible because they gave up the fight before the fight had even begun. The GOP should have forced the Democrats to confront and reject each of these MORE responsible budgets BEFORE submitting to cuts as paltry as $60 billion. As it is . . .

I find it impossible to take the Republicans seriously, while I can only conclude that the Democrats are seriously deluded about the nation’s finances.

President Obama promised change. Change to me means a smaller federal state, because a larger federal state is just more of the same. The Republicans promised to honor the Constitution. That means a Constitution-sized budget to me, but the Republicans didn’t even try to deliver that.

Please give me what I want. Until you do, I withdraw my consent to be “governed” in this way. Remember the example of Egypt, and what the Declaration of Independence said — when you lose the people’s consent it’s time for you to go.

END LETTER

Clearly, the politicians are incapable of thinking strategically in order to solve the financial problems they’ve created. For that reason, we’re going to do it for them. Downsize DC is going to launch several new campaigns designed to confront out of control spending in a strategic way, starting with . . .

* Low-hanging fruit, like the un-constitutional and harmful Department of Education, and . . .
* Crucial big-ticket items like Social Security (we can cut spending while still protecting those who are dependent on the program, and giving the younger generation a better deal).

Stay tuned to see how we handle these issues. In the meantime, please consider sending your own letter to Congress complaining about the pathetic budget cuts the House just passed. Feel free to borrow from or copy my letter if you want.

You can send your letter using DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System: https://secure.downsizedc.org/etp/campaigns/104

Perry Willis
Vice President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

If your comment is off-topic for this post, please email us at feedback@downsizedc.org

comments

Post a Comment


Notice: Undefined variable: user_ID in /var/www/archive.downsizedc.org/wordpress/wp-content/themes/downsizer/comments.php on line 89

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*
 
© 2008–2019 DownsizeDC.org