Posted on 04/29/2017 11:55:30 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The federal government once again hit the debt ceiling. The ceiling limits the amount of money the federal government can borrow a number that was set at $20.1 trillion.
Although the issue should have been dealt with in 2015, then-Speaker John Boehner capitulated to President Obama and postponed the debt limit until March 16, 2017. Since then, the federal debt has grown by $1,414,397,000,000 more than one trillion in less than two years.
President Trump promised during his campaign to bring back American prosperity and make Washington work for everyone not just for the small group of Washington elite inside the Beltway.
His recently released budget decisively delivers on these promises and deserves its title: "America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again." It recognizes that federal spending is out of control and represents the first serious attempt to tame it in decades.
Although the budget does grant significant increases to Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs, it is more remarkable for the significant cuts that it makes. The EPA received a 31% cut. It cuts the Agriculture budget by 21% and the State Department budget by 28%.
The plan also cuts funding entirely to several smaller federal programs, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Between these cuts, the freeze on federal hiring and President Trump's executive orders on regulation, government and its stranglehold on American industry will loosen.
Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination also helps in this respect: He is an avowed opponent of Chevron deference, the court ruling that allows agencies to irresponsibly interpret laws as they please if there is no clear mandate from Congress.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
You touch on a major issue.
I’ve heard that about 80-85% of the federal budget is on automatic pilot. About 80-85% of the budget consist of :
Social Security,
Medicare,
Medicaid,
defense spending,
paying interest on the national debt.
The interest on the debt tends to keep increasing every year because the total debt keeps growing.
Have you ever wondered why approx. 500 of the advertised best and brightest Cant scrape up enough intelligence to balance a budget?
Yes, I wonder about that. I could balance the budget, with an Excel spreadsheet, and input various “what if” scenarios, to get to where we need to be.
I think the answer to your question is politics, and that we would need to make hard choices about cutting spending.
Every dollar spent by the federal government has a constituency which would protest seeing that dollar cut.
I did?
That happens. Like Jim on Taxi :)
Yeah man even if welfare and SNAP were done away with completely, we’d have a deficit.
Though we do need to slash those two things.
I saw SNAP cards being sold for 50 cents no the dollar.
Great for a small time grocer.
I think Trump said he won’t touch SS and medicare. I admire the integrity, but maybe he spoke too fast.
Put DC back into the chains of USConstitution, or perish.
Somebody took an ax to the “v”.
Meanwhile, they could get rid of “The Environmental Projection Agency” /”the rev” Al Sharpton
The sad part, the American people are just as bad as the politicians. They want others freebees cut, but not theirs. If cuts are made, many if not most will hoot and holler and the politicians will give in, the deficits will get higher and the road to disaster will continue. Soc. Sec. needs to be cut, medicaid needs to be cut, federal departments need to be eliminated, number of federal employees reduced etc. Who will stand for that? And the can is kicked down the road for the umpteenth time.
agreed - basically any department created after 1964 should be eliminated
Incremental good intentions that required money grew into the monster parasite that killed the host.
"The feds have no constitutional right or authority to meddle in or interfere with the environment or environmental issues. Those issues legally belong to the states."
I use it all the time. Can't say it enough. Hope someday enough people will actually get that the only legal guardian of our God-given freedoms is the Constitution.
I wish I could say Sharpton was unconstitutional but I can't. He's just toxic, like the EPA itself.
Hopefully, Trump will set an example by cutting back Federal employment and then the States and Local Governments will follow his lead and cut employees.
Overall we have far too many government employees (and consultants) who are paid too much and do too little work.
“The rev” Al Sharpton is a special kind of stupid. The mere fact that there are people drawn to him is scary. But then, there’s Hank Johnson, Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, Nancy Pelosi, Bill deBlasio, etc. etc. etc.
Very scary.
Those votes cost money man!
He should get a task force going to find illegals receiving federal benefits, and deporting them, never to return.
Agreed. Clean up IRS too. Lots of money to be saved.
It will take strong, and short, term limits. The K-Street / UniParty / Big Business bloc is way too strong. Need to weaken or destroy one or two of the legs of that stool.
I’m impressed that IBD has written a thoughtful and incisive editorial. Welcome to the fight, ladies and gentlemen at IBD.
“Our ancestors woulda been breaking out the tar and feathers by now...”
Today’s American patriots have stockpiled enough arms and ammo to shoot every federal bureaucrat, every judge and every congress critter 49,786 times.
We’re just waiting for Gen. mewzilla to give the command.
:-)
The “greatest generation” is the one who voted for FDR’s great society and also for LBJ’s war on poverty. Not every single person of that generation landed on the beaches of Normandy.
Give up SS and Medicare? Then you better be prepared to have a whole lotta seniors on welfare.
Yeah, that’s great except companies are laying off many people in their fifties who then find it extremely difficult to find another job. Tell them they won’t get Social Security until they are 69 or older. Heck, if raising the retirement age is the solution, let’s raise it to 100 then Social Security will really be saved.
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