- There is an ultimate truth that we as a nation need to embrace right now. The debt ceiling debate brought this item front and center, and showed it to all that were willing to see it. We as a nation are broke. We have been broke for sometime, and we are just now reaching a point where our debt is more than untenable in our current context. The most critical fact that keeps coming up is this one: Of every dollar spent by Washington, forty cents of it is borrowed.
The fact should smack us in the face like a splash of ice water. We cannot continue to function as we have in the past with our existing debtload, and spending habits. Also when our government's unfunded and off the books liabilities are factored into the equation, we as a nation are beyond broke, beyond bankrupt. If it is not properly remedied very soon, the meltdown of our governmental system will make the implosion of Enron look tiny by comparison.
I have heard it said from a source or two, that when all the items are placed on the table, our government is currently spending, has spent, or has promised to spend one hundred percent of GDP. Allow me to reiterate that... Our government has issued debt, is issuing debt, or is promising to issue debt equivalent to one hundred percent of our entire nation's economic output. Allow that to sink in for a minute or two.
That should be a sobering reality. That should wake us all up, and demand real change from Washington. That should force us to ask hard questions as to what is being done in our name there.
We need substantitive change from Washington now. We need across the board cuts in our current spending levels today, not in six months after a commission fails to reconmend anything useful. We need to act today to put our government's fiscal house on some form of a foundation that isn't sand mixed with mud. If we delay, the pain will be significantly worse. Allow me to make the following recomendation:
1. This year's budget needs to be cut by 20% across the board.
3, Remove permanently all forms of baseline budgeting as the method for calculating the next year's levels.
4. Freeze all spending levels at what the amount ends up being after the 20% cuts are implemented.
5. Force all spending items new or old to pass through the budgetary process. If it hasn't been budgeted and appropriated properly, it doesn't get spent.
6. Eliminate every item in the budget that cannot be directly traced to an enumerated power for the federal government found in the US Constitution.
7. Force the government to live within a budget. If it can't pass a budget, and it can't pass appropriate bills, it shouldn't have any spending authority at all.
8. We as a nation need to reform our byzantine tax code. And by reform, I mean it should be eliminated altogether and replaced with a simple method of taxing everyone at the same rate that treats all income the same.
9. All government procurement needs to be radically overhauled, and replaced with a single method of buying and selling things controlled by a single agency.
10. Our existing debt must be renegotiated with a goal of reducing its scope and impact by no less than 15%.
If we do some or all of these things, we might just might be able to avoid a horrible fiscal catastrophe.
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