This is What Limited Government Means!

[Updates below.]

All you fakes in the GOP and moderate liars in the Democratic Party better sit up and carefully read this gigantic broadside against the way government is done in Washington, D.C. and understand that only steps as drastic, as far-reaching, and as impactful as these are the only ways to return the federal government to some reasonable form.

The list of items is just too big to quote, but a few I can't pass up:

1. Stop digging. Federal spending is growing at its fastest rate since the 1960s, but many of the same lawmakers calling for spending restraint also support legislation to expand highway spending by 72 percent, increase special education spending by 151 percent, and once again extend unemployment benefits. Each of these spending increases will dig the United States deeper into its financial hole and necessitate even more difficult choices later. Lawmakers should cut spending now.
   
2. Balance the budget by 2014 without raising taxes. Budget deficits are merely a symptom of two larger problems: a sluggish economy and runaway spending. Restoring economic growth requires low tax rates, and runaway spending is the most dangerous threat to pro-growth tax relief. Balancing the budget with spending cuts will improve the country's ability to deal with the massive Social Security and Medicare liabilities that will come due when the baby boomers retire.
   
3. Freeze discretionary spending in 2005. Discretionary spending leaped 39 percent between 2001 and 2004. Even after excluding defense and costs related to September 11, discretionary spending is rising percent 7 percent annually. Do these agencies need yet another spending increase this year' Congress and the President should do what millions of families do: set priorities, and balance each high-priority spending increase with a low-priority spending cut.
   
4. Reform entitlements. Spending cannot be restrained without reforming entitlements, which comprise two-thirds of all federal spending and threaten the country's long-term finances (see Chart 2). These programs are projected to grow 6 percent annually for the next decade. Table 1, which displays the spending restraint needed to balance the budget by 2014, shows no scenario to balance the budget by 2014 without reducing that 6 percent mandatory spending annual growth rate. Lawmakers seeking to rein in spending should put all entitlement spending on the table, including the 2003 Medicare drug bill and the 2002 farm bill.
   
5. Fix the budget process. Lawmakers still cling to the budget process created back in 1974. Over the past 30 years, successive Congresses have punched this process full of holes, and federal spending has correspondingly tripled. The current budget process provides no workable tools to limit spending, no restrictions on passing massive costs onto future generations, and no incentive to bring all parties to the table early in the budget process to set a framework. The Family Budget Protection Act, authored by Representatives Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Paul Ryan (R-WI), Chris Chocola (R-IN), and Christopher Cox (R-CA), provides a comprehensive proposal for creating a budget process that reflects America's budget priorities and should be closely examined by anyone interested in budget reform.

How to Get Federal Spending Under Control by Brian M. Riedl also includes these points:

Following several "expansion budgets," President Bush has moved the debate in a more responsible direction by proposing a "belt-tightening budget" that asks most agencies to accept a near-freeze in discretionary spending. But would most families trying to cut costs simply freeze each expenditure equally? Or would they fully fund priorities like food, the mortgage payment, and insurance, while completely eliminating unaffordable luxuries such as vacations and entertainment?

[...]

President Bush proposes terminating 65 programs at a savings of $4.9 billion (see appendix). Although a step in the right direction, these low-priority terminations represent only 0.2 percent of all federal spending. By contrast, a priority budget would:

• Fully fund a limited number of high-priority spending categories, such as defense and homeland security;
  
• Terminate entire categories of lower-priority programs, such as corporate welfare;
  
• Institute a moratorium on pork projects;
  
• Limit non-security spending increases to programs that pass their audits; and
  
• Substantially reform programs growing at unsustainable rates, such as Social Security and Medicare.

And then comes a outrageously long litany of outdated, useless, expensive, duplicative, pork-barrel, and inefficient federal programs, services, and agencies that either need to be axed wholesale or drastically scaled back.

The Heritage Foundation did an excellent job with this report. The only thing left out of the discussion is what must happen next. I have no optimism for the taste it'll leave in any politician's mouth save for the more honest.

Link via Andrew Sullivan.

UPDATE(6/3/2004 1:11pm)
Can't Cut the Budget; Politicians Will Eat Me!

UPDATE(6/18/2004 5:06pm)
Whom to Vote For?

Posted by Drizzten at March 08, 2004 06:09 PM