Republicans Fail to Propose Meaningful Budget Cuts

Senate Republicans are pushing a proposal to cut $20B from Obama’s $1.13T budget. This is in opposition to a Democratic proposal to shave $4B from the same budget.

The U.S. national debt is well over thirteen trillion dollars. That amounts to more than 119k of debt for every single U.S. taxpayer.  Every child born in America today is born owing 42k in national debt.

If you or I were in that kind of personal debt, would we cut our spending by 1.5 percent?  Of course we wouldn’t!  We would slash our spending to the bone until we were out of debt.   This proposed $20B cut is not a joke, it is an outrage.  We need to cut the budget until it is at a level we can afford.  The minimum acceptable budget cut should be on the order of 10%, with follow-up reductions every year until the debt is under control.

The Republican proposal isn’t even a cut — it represents a $10B increase over current spending.  Our current Republican leadership doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to even try for a budget freeze at current spending levels.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell said “The American people are saying to us: ‘You’re spending too much, you’re running up too many debts, and we expect you to do something about it.”  Mitch is right, but the American people want more than words — we demand action.

Republican voters have long been unhappy with Washington’s profligate spending.  This has finally resulted in many Republican incumbents losing primary races to political newcomers who campaign on platforms of fiscal conservatism.  The Republican Party must regain the moral high ground regarding fiscal conservatism — if we have to replace every Republican senator in Washington.