...
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation recently challenged D.C. think tanks, on the Left and Right, to produce budget solutions, all abiding by the same rules and economic assumptions, as part of the foundation's Solutions Initiative II project.
Obama's favorite think tank, the Center for American Progress, submitted a plan that calls for the federal government to eat up more than 20 percent of the American economy through taxation every year, in perpetuity. Being the liberals that they are, CAP calls for even higher levels of spending -- above 22 percent of GDP by 2022 alone.
Contrast CAP's plan with that of the Heritage Foundation. It returns taxation to just above the historical U.S. average at 18.5 percent of GDP. By cutting spending to pre-Great Society levels, the Heritage plan not only balances the budget but actually begins to lower our cumulative national debt.
Heritage achieves these savings by repealing Obamacare; making the wealthy pay more for their Medicare benefits and shifting the program to a premium-support model; capping Medicaid spending and turning the program over to the states; and transforming Social Security back into an anti-poverty program as originally promoted by President Franklin Roosevelt.
There still is time for America to avoid the fate of chronic overspenders like Spain, France and Greece. We can get our fiscal house in order. And, as the Heritage Foundation budget shows, all of this can be done without raising taxes.
Obama is hopelessly addicted to spending and taxing. I don't have much confidence that Republicans will refuse to go along with him. The Heritage plan is the most sane one on the table.
Sadly the American people, or at least those who take the time to vote, are equally addicted. Thereby stands the real problem. Reality will have to intervene in a painful way for this to change, and we will have Greek-style rioting in the streets of blue states.
ReplyDelete