Would you support my federal budget proposal?

Question

1) Freeze the growth rate of non-entitlement spending to 2.5%, which is the present rate of CPI.

2) Either pass my tax proposal or leave tax rates exactly where they are today, on a permanent basis.

Note - tax revenue is presently increasing at a double digit clip, if we could freeze spending at the present rate of inflation we'd have a surplus within 18 months at the latest and it would grow from there.

The two main "what ifs" are inflation and interest rates - what if either of them grows - - but they're a lot less likely to if we can cap spending.

M it's "complex" because they don't handle it the way families handle their budgets!!!!! EVERYBODY ELSE says "OK we have "$X to spend" - - - or, almost everybody else, some people just run up debts and file Chapter 13, which you can't do as easily anymore.

Congress doesn't do that. Congress takes up issue after issue, says how much should we spend on A, on B, on C, and BECAUSE NO CAP IS SET THEY NEVER HAVE TO MAKE THE HARD CHOICES - THEY NEVER HAVE TO MAKE ANY CHOICES.

And the electoral system is designed to function this way - Congressmen are elected for 2-year terms based on their ability to "bring home the bacon" - - it's in nobody's interest to stop the spending madness.

Answer 1

Given the history of Congress, it would take a miracle to cap spending. No matter how much revenue is taken, they always spend more.

Answer 2

Actually, Bush is proposing capping growth of non-entitlement spending at 1%, along with the same tax proposal. Also, he has proposed a less than 1% cut in the growth of Medicare by strengthening the current means-testing in the system. He has asked lawmakers to get together on Social Security and Medicare with "no preconditions."

Answer 3

No - for one, I don't understand the vernacular of economics

but I do understand that the federal budget is far more complex than can be summarized in two quip paragraphs