America Needs Less Spending, Not Just Balanced Budgets
We in the Tea Party 2009 movement are extremely unhappy about the explosive deficit spending taking place in our nation’s capitol at the behest of the Obama Administration and its Democrat cohorts in Congress. We ought to be. Deficit spending encourages the government to spend far above and beyond what it would spend if it had to swallow hard and raise taxes on us right now to pay for its budget. Much of the deficit is paid for by printing money, which causes inflation and destroys the value of the money that hard-working Americans have earned. Because this causes prices to rise, it hurts poor and struggling families the most- they already have barely enough to make ends meet.
The portion of the deficit that is not monetized (paid for by printing money), is paid for by taking out loans. The government takes out loans by issuing Treasury bonds, many of which are bought up by the Chinese and Saudis. This crowds out the market for credit, which is ironic since most advocates of Obama’s massive deficit spending spree argue that there is not enough freely flowing credit in the economy. Eventually the government has to pay off its debt (with interest), which means that by running deficits now, the government is only promising to tax us even more later. Just the cost of servicing the interest on the United States Government’s massive debt is a major drag on the economy.
But folks, I’m writing to explain why it’s not enough to call for balanced budgets. The Federal budget isn’t vastly irresponsible because it’s running deficits, it’s running deficits because it’s vastly irresponsible. For most people actively engaged in the 2009 American Tea Party protest movement, I’m likely just preaching to the choir, but it never hurts to be reminded of the common sense, limited government principles that made our nation’s economy the envy of the world, and which can do so again if we only embrace those principles and embody them in law and public policy. We need to call on our government not only to balance its budget, but to do so by spending far less than it does today.
If we only cut 10% of spending across the board, in every department of the U.S. Executive Branch, it would return $250,000,000,000 to American taxpayers every year- and this would only return spending to the level it was at just a year or two ago! We need to elect to office candidates that will promise to introduce spending cuts, not increases. We need a policy revolution that will for the first time in our history, drastically reduce the size and scope of the Federal government. As the American Tea Party movement gears up for its nation-wide protests this Spring and Summer, we must remember that it is not just balanced budgets, but less spending that America needs.
