The president released a nearly $4 trillion budget proposal to Congress in February that would grow the government. America needs to grow the economy.
The president says that now is not the time to “trim his sails” but many Americans are asking for Washington to change course and stop sending federal spending into a budgetary red sea.
Unfortunately, the president’s budget drops anchor on a tax-and-spend framework that would raise taxes and add to the national debt as far as the eye can see. It also proposes more than $2 trillion in sweeping new taxes and new entitlements. At the same time, it ignores long-term solvency issues facing the nation’s public health and retirement entitlement programs.
The president’s plan would blow through the budget spending caps that he signed into law in 2011. Federal tax receipts would climb to a record $3.52 trillion. That means Uncle Sam’s share of the economy would consume 18.7 percent of GDP. Furthermore, federal spending would soar to nearly $4 trillion in fiscal year 2016. The President’s math doesn’t ever add up to a balanced budget. Spending would outpace revenue by one-half trillion dollars or so. His budget projects the total national debt would climb from $18.1 trillion today to $26 trillion in the next decade.
If this fiscal ship were allowed to set sail, mandatory spending programs, such as Medicare, Social Security and interest payments on the debt, eventually would put the squeeze on discretionary spending for national defense and public services, from public infrastructure to public health and public safety.
The president’s budget would tax more, borrow more and spend more.[ Instead, Washington needs to tax less, borrow less and spend less.
As a senior member of the Senate Budget Committee, I’m working to restore fiscal discipline and bring fiscal responsibility back to the federal budgeting process. Article I, Section 8 vests primary fiscal authority to the people’s branch to raise, borrow and spend public resources through the legislative process.
The Budget Act of 1974 calls for Congress to approve an annual budget resolution. From there, congressional appropriators are supposed to work through the committee system to allocate money for specific purposes in a dozen spending bills. Congress has adopted a series of statutory mechanisms over the years to rein in irresponsible spending, from sequestration processes to budget caps and raising points of order.
By most any measure, the federal budgeting system is broken. It isn’t working, so let’s fix it. That’s why I’m co-sponsoring common sense, structural reforms that would create a two-year budgeting cycle. Congress would set a blueprint and authorize spending in the first year. And during the second, Congress would scrutinize how tax dollars are being spent to learn what works and what doesn’t and to prioritize needs for the following year. Biennial budgeting would help bring sanity and certainty to the process. By that measure, Congress can work to give the taxpaying public better value, better quality and better bang for the buck.
Too many cycles of stop-gap spending bills create fiscal uncertainties that lead to inefficient and ineffective use of scarce tax dollars. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I’m co-sponsoring proposals that would add a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution. Since the Bill of Rights was ratified more than 220 years ago, the U.S. Constitution has been amended only 17 more times. The nation’s historic debt forecast requires historic measures. The taxpaying public deserves another constitutional check on government spending. Restoring the limits of government and lasting fiscal discipline by engaging Congress and the American people in a constitutional debate will help build public trust.
We can’t afford to let currents of deficit disorder capsize economic growth, productivity, innovation and prosperity. Dysfunctional budgetary controls call for a sea change in the way Washington sets its budget and sticks to it.