PRESIDENT Obama and Democratic majorities in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives used the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression to create a vast new entitlement program and go on a deficit spending binge that pushed the national debt past $14 trillion without creating economic growth or jobs. The American people responded by denying the president his majority in the House and weakening his majority in the Senate. Across the nation, voters reminded members of Congress that they work for the people they represent, not for party leaders.
House Republicans introduced a budget plan Tuesday that would reduce government spending by $5.8 trillion during the next decade through a series of program cuts, entitlement reforms, tax code overhauls and a repeal of the 2010 health care law. The plan, proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, would far exceed President Obama's aim to cut the deficit by more than $1 trillion during the next decade.
The Budget Deficit Act of 2005 has the noble goal of bringing fiscal sanity to the federal budget. A reduction of $40 billion in government spending is a small but correct first step in regaining control of our budget. For that reason it was important that Congress pass this legislation. Like all bills with multiple titles, however, there are some negative aspects hidden within the 700-plus pages of monetary policy. As advocates for federalism and local control of education, we are very disturbed at the introduction in this bill of a new entitlement program with mandatory spending. The Academic Competitiveness Grant Program, inserted in conference under Title VIII, Section 8003 of S. 1932, authorizes more than $4 billion in new spending. It seeks to reward students who take a rigorous c...
House Republican leaders are battling to follow through on their pledge to cut spending, as the Budget Committee today votes on a measure that would reform and cut entitlement-program spending to the tune of $53.9 billion. Rep. Jim Nussle, Iowa Republican and the panel's chairman, said he has the votes in committee to pass the massive measure - a collection of proposals from eight House panels.
The Senate yesterday barely defeated a Democratic budget proposal that would have required Congress to pay for new entitlement program spending or tax cuts - a measure Republicans say was designed to prevent them from extending such cuts. The election-year debate over tax cuts and debt erupted as Sen. Kent Conrad, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, tried to add the proposal to the 2007 budget blueprint being considered this week.
As a registered nonpartisan, I find the total field of presidential candidates deeply troubling. On the Republican side, the front-runners all espouse some form of soft socialism that has gotten us the proliferation of criminal earmark spending, a new entitlement program, out-of-control illegal immigration and a horribly misguided energy bill.
With a full complement of smoke and mirrors distorting spending, revenues and the deficit, the Republican Congress recently passed its 2006 budget resolution. Admittedly, the 2006 budget does project a modicum of spending restraint in some areas, such as domestic discretionary spending. But health-care entitlement spending - in particular, the Medicaid program, which President Bush's budget slightly targeted - will proceed full-speed ahead. Moreover, the resolution's celebrated achievement - chopping the federal budget deficit in half between 2004 ($521 billion) and 2008 ($254 billion) - is accomplished only by using gimmicks and other subterfuge.
MANY GOVERNORS AND STATE LAWMAKERS who disagree with President George W. Bush on most things are with him when it comes to the need to bring Medicaid spending under control. States are reeling, too, from a health care entitlement program for the poor that keeps costing more and more and can't be sustained in its current form. Ohio is typical -- or worse than typical by some measures. One in six Ohioans are covered under the health care program, and more than one in four children get the coverage.
As a candidate, Barack Obama campaigned on the joint themes of hope and change. He promised to bring a new style of leadership to Washington, D.C. Since being elected, President Obama has demonstrated a breathtaking ability to spend the people's money and to expand federal power. Now our nation is on the cusp of establishing a huge medical entitlement program. With entitlement spending already spinning out of control, it is nothing less than reckless to make more Americans wards of the state. I have a modest proposal. How about reforming three existing mega- programs that have been shamefully mismanaged? If Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were repaired, then President Obama would truly deliver on his bold promises of hope and change for America.
Yesterday, President Bush unveiled his spending plan for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The 2006 budget forecasts that federal spending will exceed $2.5 trillion for the first time. Meanwhile, despite the fact that the 2006 budget "does not reflect the effect of undetermined but anticipated supplemental requests for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond 2005," the fiscal 2006 budget deficit is projected to total $390 billion. Thus, once military costs for Iraq and Afghanistan are incorporated into the 2006 estimates, it will be clear that the budget deficit will continue to increase, rising from $158 billion (2002) to $378 billion (2003) to $412 billion (2004) to a projected $427 billion (2005) to a probable $460 billion (or higher) for 2006. The president's budget does...
... and the State Children's Health Insurance Program would cumulatively be reduced by $44 billion over ...
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