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Spending & Federal Debt
- Balancing the budget is really just a matter of common sense. We must spend within our means.
- We must prioritize and limit government spending. We must spend efficiently and wisely
- Controlling spending and the federal debt is the number one issue of our times. Almost every problem facing our nation has a spending component. See the categories on the left for specific issues.
Government spending and the resultant deficits are major issues that the Congress must address. Moreover, in my opinion, Congress has been doing a very poor job of it. Many other issues such as taxes, national debt, defense, social security, health care, war on poverty, and our nation's infrastructure are directly related to how Congress spends the people's money.
Since all of these issues are spending issues, they are interrelated and limited by financial resources. If we had unlimited funds, theoretically we could solve all of these issues. I say theoretically because some government spending may be so out of touch with reality that it makes things worse. Since the taxpayers do not have unlimited funds, Congress must prioritize and limit spending. It needs to pick the areas where the need is the greatest and we get the biggest bang for the buck.
I have the skills, judgment, experience, and knowledge to make the right spending decisions. While operating a small business, one needs to quickly learn how to deal with limited resources. It is only by making wise decisions and prioritizing needs can you remain in business. My experience in community work has taught me how to balance the needs of people with the resources available. Remember, the need is always greater than the resources and whether we like it or not, tough decisions need to be made.
We must prioritize and control government spending. During my 37 years as a chief executive of a private company, I have developed the habit of keeping spending under control. In private industry you go out of business if you cannot control spending. I have learned how to manage money responsibly, based on efficiency and logic, not partisan politics and special interest groups. If elected, I'll bring that skill and determination to Washington. All too many career politicians have developed the habit of increasing taxes rather than controlling spending.
Furthermore, New Jersey and specifically the 8th congressional district gives Washington substantially more money than it gets back. For every dollar sent to Washington, New Jersey gets 61 cents back. For every dollar we cut taxes, we will have a net saving of 39 cents even if we take into account the money that the feds give New Jersey.
If we are spending more than we have, we need to do what our families would do - use common sense and spend within our means. For some reason, people, when elected, appear to leave common sense at home. The current Congress has allowed spending and debt to spiral out of control.
Here are some immediate actions we can take to control spending:
- Elect congressman who promise to control spending.
- Eliminate Earmarks: Support President McCain's pledge to veto any legislation that contains earmarks.
- Change the rules: Disallow the practice of adding spending resolutions to totally unrelated bills. A bill that earmarks funds for a specific project should be allowed only in a spending bill. The process must allow time for congressmen to review the spending bill.
- Line item veto: Allow the president to veto any single spending item by itself while letting other parts of the bill pass. A number of states have given this power to their chief executive. While it is not a panacea, it can go a long way from getting the obvious pork out of the budget.
- Address the issue of spending in a reasonable, rational, and non-partisan manner. The parties should talk with each other, not at each other
- Address the area of entitlements: Congress must address the area of entitlements, primarily health care and social security which right now appear to be putting the biggest strain on the budget. The objective is not to cut spending on these programs, but to save them so that health care and social security will still be viable in 20 years without consuming the entire national budget. Many think, myself included, that the current congress is fiddling while Rome burns. These issues must be addressed if we are to survive as a nation.
- Most important, Congressmen needs to put the interests of the nation first, not their own personal advancement or wealth.
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More:
The above might seem somewhat idealistic and even impossible, but we must strive to accomplish these goals. Read on for more of my thoughts on the subject of government spending:
I firmly believe we need to reduce the size of government. I believe that individuals can make and should have the right to make choices regarding their own destiny. I firmly believe that in most cases, an individual will make a better choice than a government official on what is best for the individual. If you send me to Washington, I will look at all issues to see if they are better solved by the individual, then the town, then the State, and finally the Federal government.
Spending is a very important issue for me. When I talk to people, they tell me that high taxes are their number one concern, but they are extremely cynical that anyone going to Washington will really work for them cutting spending and taxes. But after discussing the topic a bit, I usually get support. No one that I have talked to has said that they want their taxes to go up, and they realize that spending needs to be held in check to cut taxes.
Cutting government spending is a really tough subject and even though I have given this subject a lot of thought, getting these thoughts written in a clear concise manner is no easy task. But that is why a mainstay of my platform will be cutting spending and taxes. If it were easy, you wouldn't have to vote for me.
Some think we should create a list of items in the federal budget that should be cut. This is a trap because regardless of what is on the list to cut, it will be important to someone. And you can be attacked for taking food out of the mouths of babes or denying healthcare to the needy. Instead, I intend to discuss the process that we need to follow to cut spending. No one wants to hurt citizens and make them suffer by denying health care, food, and shelter. We are too wealthy a nation for this to happen. But we do have to spend our money wisely so that we get a better bang for the buck. The federal government has to act in the same manner as family or small business. Being big is no excuse for being stupid.
Since all of these issues are spending issues, they are interrelated and limited by financial resources. If we had unlimited funds, theoretically we could solve all of these issues. I say theoretically because some government spending may be so out of touch with reality that it makes things worse. Since the taxpayers do not have unlimited funds, Congress must prioritize and limit spending. It needs to pick the areas where the need is the greatest and we get the biggest bang for the buck.
Moreover, in my opinion, Congress has been doing a very poor job of setting priorities. Many other issues such as taxes, national debt, defense, social security, health care, war on poverty, and our nation's infrastructure are directly related to how Congress spends the people's money.
Here are a few basic concepts that our Congress needs to embrace:
- One of the axioms of running a small business is that someone has to make sure the lights are turned off at night. It is another way of saying that pennies count. You read that car companies can save millions by reducing the cost of a part by one cent. I doubt if anyone in Washington takes this concept seriously. We have to change an entire mindset. We have to change an entire set of code words where spending increases are called spending cuts. We have to change the concept that it is "federal money" not the people's money that is being spent. A billion here, a billion there, is no longer a joke.
- Another axiom is that when a group of people gets together for dinner and agrees to split the check, there is a great incentive for everyone to order the most expensive dinner on the menu. It would be foolish to order the salad when the other guy orders the filet mignon if you are both going to pay the same. Why would New Jersey agree to take less in services from the Feds when we know that Arizona is going for the full ride? We need to change the way money is allocated and taxed to take this phenomenon into account. There has been some talk about user fees rather than taxes. We need to think about creative ways to pay for services so that we do not create an incentive to waste money.
- From my experience on various boards, I have found that one way to compromise and solve a disagreement is to spend more money. At midnight when everyone wants to go home, and one member wants to buy a fax machine and the other a printer, they solve the problem by buying both. I promise to always keep this in my mind when casting any vote. Maybe we should make a rule that no spending votes are allowed past 10 PM.
- When you give something away for nothing the demand will be infinite.
- We must never be allowed to forget that one of the biggest internal threats to our nation is debt, which is eating away a bigger and bigger portion of our budget each year. If we tax to close the gap, we stifle innovation, business incentive, and rather than getting more resources to apply to the nations needs, we get fewer. By encouraging economic activity and holding down spending, we will produce more jobs, wealth and tax revenue. People and businesses will profit more and pay more in taxes without paying a larger percentage of income in taxes. We will grow our way out of the threat of suffocating debt.
- The concept of zero-based budgeting has long been used by firms to control spending. The easy form of budgeting is to take the actual expenses from last year, add 5%, and that is your budget for this year. That's great for a family or small business, but in a large organization (either government or business) there is a tremendous incentive to spend every penny of this year's budget. Woe to the department that has money left in the budget and ends up with less money next year. My experience in the Navy taught me this loud and clear. Come the end of the fiscal year, we went out and bought any and everything we could get our hands on. It was considered downright un-American to leave some money in the budget. The concept of zero-based budgeting is to re-justify every year the amount of money that is needed. At the very least, this year's budget should not be based on the amount of money spent last year. This, however, is a very difficult concept to implement.
- The theory of unintended consequences: This is not just a spending concept. It has broad implications for every law that is passed. One real simple example is when one state raises the cigarette taxes. When people start buying cigarettes out of state, the lawmakers wonder why tax revenues go down and law enforcement requests budget increases to stop smuggling. Almost every law that is passed has unintended consequences; many are difficult to find, but many more are very obvious.
I think you get the idea. Washington needs people who believe in these concepts, many of them tried and true. Washington needs people that will take these and other concepts into account when making decisions.
As I said the topic of cutting spending is very difficult. I have just scratched the surface of what needs to go through a congressman's mind when voting.
I have the skills, judgment, experience, and knowledge to make the right spending decisions. While operating a small business, one needs to quickly learn how to deal with limited resources. It is only by making wise decisions and prioritizing needs can you remain in business. My experience in community work has taught me how to balance the needs of people with the resources available. Remember, the need is always greater than the resources and whether we like it or not, tough decisions need to be made.
If you have gotten this far on my webpage, it means that you are really concerned about spending and the deficit. I hope I have given you sufficient reason to support my candidacy for Congress.
All I have to do is convince 300,000 voters in the 8th district that I am extremely serious about cutting government spending and that that by having me in Washington, spending and taxes will not increase (or at least the rate of increase will slow).
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Below are links to even more info on government spending.
Links
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973.333.5415
