“Two combined forces create a strong formula for endless deficits. First, politicians want to keep their jobs, so they continue to bring home goodies for constituents. That means choosing spending over spending reductions. And to help make sure they keep their jobs, politicians always promise not to raise taxes. The result is systemic deficits.

On its present course, Congress would need to double income tax rates to meet the obligations they have made on our behalf. Yet all we see is continued deficit spending and Washington’s refusal to take the hard steps to staunch the problem. There is an alternative to sudden and dramatic increases in taxes. The government can cut back on spending and adopt policies to increase economic activity. A faster-growing economy will generate more revenue with unchanged or even lower tax rates. But this takes time.

Ask any business person how to be fiscally prudent and he or she will give you a simple rule: you don’t spend what you don’t have and if you do, you are in trouble. Even families know that basic economic principle. The intricacies and precision needed to run a household demand careful fiscal acumen. Parents know what a budget means — you can’t spend what you don’t have and if you do, you are in trouble.

We need responsible government now. Our hard-won vote still means something if we work together to make it count. Our spending is solvable unless Washington refuses to hear us. Let’s make them listen.”

Amtrak’s generous subsidies and bloated budget have made them a target of fiscal hawks for some time.

The US Post Office is not much better off. Just a few days ago, they reported a larger than expected $8.5 billion loss for 2010 and a projected $5.5 billion loss for 2011. A main driver of the losses appears to be retiree health costs; more generally though, the USPS suffers from bureaucratic management inherent in a government-run business.

Today’s fiscal crisis might be just the catalyst for kicking to the curb government-run businesses that have shown little ability to outperform their private counterparts in anything but annual operating loss.

Certainly this approach is not the one expected from the Commission though, with 12 of the 18 members chosen by President Obama and Congressional Democrats more prone to tax increases than spending cuts. That being the case, it was welcome news to hear the two leaders of the Commission express their ideas on a possible proposal – one that involved three-fourths spending cuts and the remainder focusing on restructuring the tax code. In effect, this would more closely mirror the example being set by David Cameron in Great Britain right now.

The general outline of the plan would:

• Deficit: cut $3.8 trillion from the deficit, bringing it to 2.2% of GDP by 2015 from the current 9%;
• Social Security: raise the retirement age slightly over time while adjusting down the rate at which benefits grow;
• Medicare: pay doctors less for services provided and call for “comprehensive” legislation to reduce malpractice costs;
• Discretionary Spending: reduce congressional and White House budgets by 15%, freezing federal salaries and cutting the federal workforce by 10%; $1.4 trillion in discretionary cuts would apply equally to domestic and defense programs;
• Tax Code: eliminate the mortgage interest deduction and many other deductions in exchange for lower marginal rates of 8%, 14% and 23%.

It’s a pleasant surprise that co-chairs Bowles and Simpson have taken a serious shot at reducing spending, but increasing tax revenue to pay for the recent increase in the size of government is a dangerous precedent to set.  These changes would increase federal revenue well above its post-WWII average and represent a permanent increase in the size of government.  If their tax proposals were revenue neutral, they’d be a positive step towards a fairer, simpler tax code.  While most economists support the idea that tax reform to broaden the base and lower the rate is good, pro-growth policy, the fact remains that we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

Democrats and President Obama have complained heartily about the lack of specifics from new Members of Congress on how they would roll back the size of government. This study couldn’t have come at a better time to highlight the bloated size of our government and offer a perfect place to start imposing newfound fiscal discipline. But to do this, it will require defeating a current proposal by the President to raise the pay of 2.1 million federal workers by 1.4% across the board.

Here’s a hint to surviving members of Congress and those interested in someday returning to Congress: heed the public’s concern over government spending and either freeze federal pay or even better, cut the federal workforce by 10%, as has been proposed by some members.

Their reasoning assumes that if people only understood how much good these policies did, then they would be happy with the last two years. Or to quote the President in his assessment of why the electorate voted the way it did, “people felt like government was getting bigger.” The implication being of course that it has not gotten bigger, his opponents just like to claim it is to rile up the public. If only that were true.  In reality, the government has grown significantly under President Obama while the private workforce has suffered.

All evidence points to public anger at bailouts, government takeover of the health care, auto and financial industries and a general trend toward bigger government role in our lives. As we have pointed out before, Republicans doubled the debt under Bush and Democrats came in and tripled it. But the Democrats just did it on a scale and pace that made the Bush years look economical.

At this point, a judgment day has come and passed. We can only hope that the message was received. The Lame Duck session should only deal with necessary legislation to fund the government for the year and to prevent massive tax hikes from taking place.  More importantly, the 112^th Congress will be the true test of whether they are really listening to what the people want – spend less, cut the size of government and start focusing on policies that incentivize work, savings and investment.

The story says that even more people are eligible for the cosmetic surgery benefits under the teacher’s union contracts.

It is time for our elected officials to start facing the facts and making the tough choices to get our county’s fiscal house in order.

States, cities and schools are trimming their payrolls in a cost-cutting effort that has dramatically improved the financial condition of state and local governments.

In the past year, state and local employment has been reduced, mostly through not filling vacancies, by 258,000, or 1.3%, to 19.2 million workers, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The cuts are the most since the recession of 1980-81. The federal workforce, meanwhile, grew 3.4% to 2.2 million in the past year.

Unfortunately our elected officials continue their reckless spending – while some are even calling for more spending. It will be important for citizens to make their voice heard and tell our elected officials to cut spending as we approach the lame duck session in Congress.

Mr. Coburn said both parties would feel pressure to respond to voters’ apparent desire for spending cuts, giving lawmakers incentives to work together. Democrats “will be looking over their shoulder at 2012,” he said. And “if the Republicans don’t respond to what the vast majority of Americans want in terms of downsizing and limiting the federal government, I think the Republicans will be history.”

But some in Washington still don’t see that we have a spending problem. Instead they believe that Washington needs more of our money.

One leading liberal lawmaker, Rep. Henry Waxman, said he couldn’t see how the two parties could reach a deal on deficit-cutting “if we’re going to cut spending without increased revenues.”

Help us send a clear message to Washington that it is time for them to CUT SPENDING. Sign the petition today and let Washington know that we have had enough of their out of control spending.

A midterm campaign that has turned heavily on the issue of the mounting federal debt is likely to yield a government even more split over what to do about it, people in both parties say, with diminished Democrats and reinforced Republicans confronting internal divisions even as they dig in against the other side.

As citizens we must let our leaders in Washington know that cutting spending is a priority. Help us send a clear message to Washington: Enough is enough, it is time to cut spending. Sign the spending revolt petition today.

“The problem is not going away, and public officials cannot cross their fingers and ignore it,” said Eileen Norcross, state and local policy expert at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. “Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and New York City are slated to run out of money to pay retirees in the next few years. That means less money for core public services in our major cities.”

According to a study released by Norcross and her co-author, Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute, the public pension crisis alone will require states to contribute two or three times more of their budgets to fund these obligations, leaving less money for education and basic government service. Unless states embrace serious reforms, the money will run out. Current systems are simply unsustainable.

Utah provides a good case study for elected officials serious about addressing our spending problems.

Before the economic downturn in 2008, Utah’s public pension system was fully funded, but the financial crisis blew a 30 percent hole in the pension system, said Utah State Senator Dan Liljenquist. Facing a $6.5 billion funding gap for long-term obligations, Utah requested that the state actuaries project the cost of the pension fund 40 years into the future. No matter what scenario the actuaries ran, the data showed the state could not grow out of its problem. Utah was broke.

“We made a long-term commitment on faulty underlying assumptions that everything was good,” said Liljenquist. “Year after year we thought we could get above market returns, have no risk and that the taxpayer can always afford more—that was the problem.”

Keeping the system in its current form would have required Utah to increase its annual contribution to the public pension fund by 75 percent over the next 3-4 years, Liljenquist explained. The state simply couldn’t do that as the amount of money involved would have been equivalent to 8-10 percent of Utah’s general and education fund for the next 25 years.

“This is not a short-term fix, it’s a long-term problem we spent decades getting into,” said Liljenquist. “This isn’t a problem that you can get out of overnight.”

In the end, Utah state defined-contribution plan to new hires starting July 2011. The replaced it with a hybrid plan that combined a 401(k) benefit with a guaranteed benefit. In the previous defined-benefit plan, workers contributed nothing. This new type of plan shifts more responsibility for funding retirement benefits to employees. The state contribution is capped at 10 percent, and the employee is responsible for contributing anything more than that. Until the current system is fully funded, it will not raise retirement benefits for state employees .

After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending,” Pelosi said in her speech from the speaker’s podium. “Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt.”

Since that time the politicians in Washington have spent more than $5 trillion in new debt. It is time for Washington to cut spending. Do you part and sign the petition to tell the big spenders in Washington to CUT SPENDING.

“One grant recipient in San Francisco claims credit for fostering the success of a group that puts on a live performance it describes as an experience in which “ethno-cyborgs create slow motion emblematic tableaux variants” and “some performers feel inclined to eroticize political violence.”

Although rife with corruption, one feature of the audit stuck out as particularly important. The Agency never passed an annual budget or produced an annual report. In government, as in business, having a budget is critical. It not only determines priorities but also serves as a tracking device for expenses to ensure that money is spent appropriately and within a reasonable amount (usually no more than the revenue brought in).

Unfortunately, this feature of the Bell story is eerily similar to the federal government over the past few years, particularly this year when Congress failed to pass a budget for the first time in modern history. Without a budget, Congress can’t exceed its budget and isn’t forced to determine priorities. The result – runaway government spending, record deficits, and politically-driven governing.

This type of governing is irresponsible and unsustainable as we saw in Bell. There’s no reason to think it should be any different in Washington. It’s time to bring back spending restraint and responsible budgeting.

In a new audit just released on the New Jersey Turnpike, we see this rampant corruption and bureaucratic waste is not relegated to just one project. Details of the audit are scandalous as the audit shows $43 million wasted on unnecessary perks and bonuses. The New Jersey taxpayers should be furious after reading the report. Much of this money went to wasteful or unjustified expenses such as employee bowling leagues and employee bonuses for working on birthdays and holidays.

All the while, tolls were being hiked up so travelers and taxpayers could pay for this government excess. Comptroller Matt Boxer describes the ugly details, “While tolls were going up, the Turnpike Authority is overpaying its employees, overpaying its management, overpaying for its health plan and overpaying for legal services.”

Anyone who thinks government spending is going to get us out of the recession and bring back a booming economy would do well to re-think their position. I suspect the New Jersey Turnpike is not as out-of-the-ordinary as we’d like to think when it comes to government programs, particularly infrastructure projects.

In defending the cuts, Treasury Chief George Osborne offered words of wisdom: “It is a hard road, but it leads to a better future.” Despite all the government programs and agencies that would take a hit under the new cuts Osborne said, “It would take time to turn around the debt supertanker.”

Unfortunately, while the Queen of England is cutting almost 1/6 of her royal budget for the sake of her country’s future, our politicians have decided to spend MORE in an effort to save their political careers in the short term (e.g., Monday’s announcement that the White House would be sending out $14 billion of Social Security checks to cover cost-of-living adjustment despite inflation remaining flat). 

The Administration says these individuals have been particularly hard-hit by the recession because for the second year in a row, they will not receive an annual increase. The situation’s not as simple as they claim though. The Wall Street Journal puts the situation in perspective:

“But lest you think this is a grave injustice, Social Security recipients received a 5.8% increase two years ago. That was the largest increase in 20 years and was based on what proved to be an ephemeral increase in energy prices. Thus for 2009 seniors received a bonus increase of about $500 above inflation.

Congress sent seniors a $250 check last year to make up for the lack of a benefit increase, and as part of ObamaCare it is sending another one this year to seniors whose drug purchases exceed $2,830. Because there is no Social Security cost of living increase, retirees will save about $285 a year on their Medicare Part B premiums that won’t rise this year, according to former deputy commissioner of Social Security Andrew Biggs.

Meanwhile, Social Security is now running a deficit—paying more in benefits than it collects in taxes—and the $250 checks would cost taxpayers close to $15 billion. Democrats would add that amount to the fiscal 2011 deficit that is already estimated to be back to more than $1.4 trillion, even as they insist that taxes have to rise to reduce the deficit.

We realize that many seniors are struggling like the rest of the country because of the mediocre economic recovery. With the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates near-zero for nearly two years, retirees who live off their savings are making almost nothing in interest. But what seniors really need is a return to more robust economic growth and more normal interest rates, and that cause won’t be helped by the government adding to its already destructive tax and spend record.”

Two differences are most notable – the 1981-82 recession had a higher unemployment rate than this latest recession but neither 1981-82 nor 1974-75 had near the government infusion of cash (i.e., government deficits). So not only are we in a slower recovery, we’re also facing a massive government bill that seems to have done little to nothing to help us.

But what is really amazing is how much money the Government spends in 2 minutes.   In every 2 minute period the government spends more than $13,440,000.   Sadly unlike a football game – Government spending doesn’t take any timeouts or have an offseason.   The government continues to spend more than $13,440,000 every 2 minutes of every day, all year long.   It is time to stop Washington’s Out of Control Spending. Sign the petition today to tell Washington to cut spending.

The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the deficit for the 2010 budget year that ended Sept. 30 will total $1.29 trillion. That’s down by $125 billion from the $1.4 trillion in 2009 – the highest deficit on record.

That means the government spend more than $1 Trillion more than it took in in 2010. Let’s put that in perspective. $ 1.29 trillion is roughly the size of the Russian economy (GDP) or $4,100 for every American ($16,000 for a family of four). And that is just how much more then government spent than it took in. More proof that we have a Spending Problem, not a revenue problem.

While families continue to cut expenses to make ends meet, the politicians in Washington continue to spend taxpayers money like there are no consequences. It is time for Washington to end this wasteful spending. If you agree please sign the petition telling Washington to cut spending.

The article states:

This trend in national spending is unsustainable and will have disastrous consequences for Florida and the country if continued. To ensure that our nation is on the path to economic recovery and not fiscal instability, Washington’s out of control spending must be reined in and the budget balanced. This all can be accomplished with the implementation of the “2007 Solution”, which would cap federal spending to levels seen three years ago.

It is an interesting piece worth the read.

As government debt goes up and the business community continues to be heavily regulated and taxed by the government, their reluctance to hire and invest is likely to get worse. And this shouldn’t be surprising. Businesses like minimal risk and minimal uncertainty. Right now, Washington has increased both.

So what’s the solution? Create an environment where businesses want to hire and invest. Lower corporate taxes, maintain current capital gains and dividend tax rates, stop over-regulating and bring back some certainty and predictability to the U.S. economy. But most of all, STOP SPENDING! This will make it a lot easier to cut the deficit and the constant need to raise taxes on the American people. It’s that simple. If government will put its books in order and stop taking from the private sector to fund its own wasteful bureaucratic leviathan, the private sector can start investing and hiring workers from a restless American workforce.

Three scholars from the Mercatus Center have recently written about this as highlighted by Reason.com. Here’s a particularly relevant excerpt for our current situation:

“New Zealand, Canada, and the postwar United States all managed to slash the state on a grand scale. Governments shed responsibility for forests, railways, radio spectrum, and more while relaxing labor markets, slimming the welfare state, and ending price controls. Far from damaging economies or increasing unemployment, these reductions in the size and scope of government boosted GDP, improved services, and created jobs.

Government cutters faced opposition along the way, from skeptical Keynesians to Kiwi bureaucrats. But they also found unlikely allies, with left-wing parties playing major roles in the Canadian and New Zealand examples.”

The article goes on to highlight each success story and why it’s possible for the U.S. to follow suit today. Perhaps if enough politicians in Washington read this, they’d tamp down their steady (and incorrect) rhetoric demanding more revenue from an already over-taxed American public.

Perhaps as disturbing, is that this increase is only “somewhat faster” than normal, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Wall Street Journal hits the nail on the head after highlighting this out of control spending:

“The Pelosi Congress has used the recession as an excuse to send spending to record heights, and its economic policies have contributed to a lousy recovery. The solution is to stop the spending and change the policies.”

All told, 85 percent of Americans are either angry about the economy or at least dissatisfied with it, according to the survey, produced for ABC and Yahoo! News by Langer Research Associates. That makes economic discontent even higher than anger or dissatisfaction with “the way the federal government is working,” at 71 percent in an ABC News/Washington Post poll last week.

More troubling is that despite the public sentiment and the mounting evidence against this failed approach, we are still seeing some call for even more spending.   It is more important than ever that we send Washington a clear message – we need to CUT spending.

In his latest article in the New York Times, Krugman argues that the government has failed to stimulate growth because we haven’t spent enough money.  This is absolutely astonishing and simply blind to our fiscal situation.

Apparently, the $13 trillion in debt and annual deficits of $1.4 trillion aren’t high enough for Paul Krugman’s liking. It’s also fascinating to hear Krugman and fellow big government proponents claim the stimulus was not big enough, distinguishing things like aid to state and local governments from direct federal spending. In both cases, the government takes money from the taxpayer and spends it. Someone please explain how this is different.

Some more of Krugman’s outlandish claims include dismissing ObamaCare as adding to the size of government because it hasn’t been implemented yet, and that “the creation of big bureaucracies and major new programs…hasn’t taken place.” What about the brand new, powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or the CLASS Act (the new long-term care entitlement system that Sen. Conrad called a giant ponzi scheme), just to name a few?

Mr. Krugman caps his argument by even pointing to the fact that, on the whole, government employees have decreased under Obama. Is this supposed to make us forget that government employees earn on average nearly double their private counterpart? Or that the Obama Administration has done its best to make sure billions of taxpayer dollars go directly to unionized federal employees (e.g., $26 billion state aid bill or 2/3 of stimulus dollars went to the Department of Education)? Or that unemployment benefits are now sitting at 99 weeks right now and likely to extended in a lame duck session if the Democrats have their way?

These claims just don’t pass the laugh test. Instinctively, Americans understand that government is too big, too intrusive and too expensive. Krugman can write about the “frugal government” till his hand falls off; that won’t change the reality that we have a real spending problem in this country and the people are ready for a change.

A great article in the Scranton, PA Times Tribune today about the Spending Revolt rally in Scranton over the weekend.

“We want to send a message that the spending has got to stop,” said James Martin, chairman of the 60 Plus Association, as he removed a worn pocket version of the Constitution from his back pocket. “The Constitution needs to be read more.”

You can read the full article by clicking here.

The Social Security Administration sent  about 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each to dead and incarcerated people — but almost half of them were returned, a new inspector-general’s report has found.

Gallup’s more unvarnished view of the unemployment situation, which does not account for seasonal adjustment, shows an increase in the rate from 9.3% in August to 10.1% in September. As Gallup reports, “Much of this increase came during the second half of the month – and therefore is unlikely to be picked up in the government’s unemployment report.”

As if the public needed more information telling us the government’s spend-now-pay-someday policies are digging us deeper, here it is. America deserves better. Pro-growth policies must focus on bringing back predictability, positive incentives to work, save and invest and responsible spending priorities. We can start by putting down the shovel and closing the wallet.

Point being, the simple spending bills are at least something we can quantify and see coming. Contrastingly, the public pension plans are unknown variables that are used even more ferociously by politicians to buy off special interests and constituents precisely because they provide very visible concentrated benefits and very hidden diffuse costs. This is made even worse however, when state governments decide to deceptively report the costs. In fact, some estimate public pension liability to be north of $3 billion.

How do they do this? Often they bank on their investment (the pension fund) receiving a higher rate of return than is likely or even reasonable to assume. Creative accounting has been one term for this – that is if you work for the government. If you work in the private sector, this is more akin to fraud and the feds don’t look too kindly on that practice.

In the coming years, public pensions are likely to be the real cause of concern for state budgets. They’re difficult politically to adjust and for the most part, they’re already promised. The result will be an even deeper crisis that “can only be solved with higher taxes.” To launch a real spending revolt, we must not only look at actual spending bills and the process behind the government’s budgeting, we must demand transparency and honesty in accounting. We can’t get spending under control if we don’t know how much we owe.

Recipients of 352 federal stimulus contracts, grants and loans have failed to report how they spent the money, the status of their projects or how many jobs were funded, according to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

As American families are cutting spending the government continues its out of control spending – with little accountability. It is time our leaders in Washington cut spending like the rest of us.

Additionally “Average annual expenditures for people in all income groups dropped 2.8% from 2008 to 2009, the first spending decline on record.”

And while Americans are cutting spending to make ends meet Government has increased spending – at an unprecedent pace. The government now spends more than $112,000 per second.

It is time for government to end this out of control spending. Please sign the Spending Revolt petition today and tell government to cut spending.