The New Party of No

Republicans talk about lowering taxes and getting our deficits under control.  In reality, they only manage half of that promise.  Now Obama is jumping on the budget-hawk bandwagon saying that after we spend $1 Trillion+ on his entitlement program, we should cut domestic spending.  According to Bruce Bartlett’s book, “The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward”, there is very little room to cut domestic spending.  If we take away defense and entitlement spending the total discretionary domestic bill comes to only $485 Billion and last year’s deficit was $459 Billion.  We would have to cut every domestic program like education, the FBI, NSA, highways, etc.  The only alternative is to start looking at those entitlement programs or accept that we all need to pay significantly higher taxes.  Obama can’t do anything to cut the deficit other than go against his promise of no taxes on the middle class.

For years, liberals have pointed and the GOP and called them the “party of no”.  While Republicans have shot down many liberal programs, they have been far from full-on naysayers to public spending.  The Bush administration, with a GOP majority in Congress had no trouble spending on things that we had no right paying for.  While they made a half-hearted attempt to reform Social Security, they actually accomplished nothing other than a tax-cut.  Spending stayed the same, but income dropped – voila, it’s a deficit.

Conservatives have to now step-up and be the real party of no.  No to everything that requires government spending and finding a way to phase-out current entitlements.  If political candidates offer programs in order to get votes, change their mind or deny them the vote.  The only alternative is to accept that we need massive new taxes to cover these programs.  It’s cut spending first, then figure out where taxes need to be.  Lowering taxes while continuing to spend like drunken sailors is not the answer.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office Director’s Blog contains the Long-Term Budget Outlook.  The Director points out what we have all known for way too long:

“Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run … Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress economic growth in the United States. Over time, accumulating debt would cause substantial harm to the economy.”

He goes on to basically say that we cannot afford the increasing costs of the public programs that Americans have been promised and now expect.  The changes that will be needed will either require massive new taxation or fundamental privatization or cutting of entitlements.

I will be writing fewer articles but going much more in-depth to investigate the programs being pushed in Congress and who to contact to inform them that we don’t want any new programs that require government funding.  Two major areas of interest will be addressed in future articles: new government spending that must be stopped, and current spending that needs to be phased out or ended.

The obvious programs to prevent becoming law are:

• Health Care Reform (Obamacare)
• Climate Reform (Cap and Trade)
• Stimulus II

The entitlements we need to consider privatizing, phasing out or ending:

• Medicare
• Social Security
• Education

No matter which things we attack and how fast, we will have to make the sacrifice that we will need to continue to pay the taxes to fund these programs through their phase-out.  Many of us have paid into them for decades and will pay into them for decades more only to get nothing.  It’s not for us.  It’s to give our children and grandchildren a debt-free country or at least certainly one that is not bankrupt.  We must decide that we do not wish to be the generation that bankrupted America.