President Obama’s speech was disappointing.
Placing a freeze on discretionary spending for 10 years resulting in anticipated savings of $400 billion represents only 15 percent of the budget is a drop in the bucket.
Everything needs to be on the table including Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and military spending which represent 85 percent of the budget.
With $1.5 trillion dollar debt this year and $14 trillion plus long term, we have to dig deeper for real cuts.
Pledging to veto any spending bills containing earmarks was a recycled pledge from 2000 that has never been enforced. Earmarks for all agencies total in the billions isn’t enough. We need a return to 2008 spending levels.
This was prior to the one time stimulus, TARP, auto industry and cash for clunkers expenditures which distorted the yearly average amount of federal spending.
It is time to follow “pay-as-go” budgeting, means testing for all government assistance programs, sunset provisions for agencies and programs that have completed their missions.
Government should also adopt a real campaign against waste, fraud and abuse. They need to go after both individual and corporate delinquent taxpayers and student loans, aggressively. There must be an open budget process, on an agency by agency basis. This would help rather than the midnight omnibus budget adoption.
Failure to take real action now may result in America going from a superpower to a super debtor nation.
This would leave us far less relevant in world affairs.
Larry Penner
Great Neck
