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Jewish World Review Jan. 25, 2011 / 20 Shevat, 5771 The Spending Cuts Challenge By Cal Thomas
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | By now those holiday bills have arrived. Those who have charged too much have cut back on spending until the bills are paid. Some have gone on the spending wagon, cutting their plastic into tiny pieces. Not the U.S. government. Unlike mere mortals, the government can print and borrow seemingly limitless amounts of money and so has little incentive to stop spending. Some blame Just as Democrats have increased the national debt to record levels these last two years, Republicans are now proposing to ratchet it down to more manageable levels. Freshman conservatives in the House have united behind a proposal to cut at least Because each dollar spent by government immediately attracts people and groups who have a vested interest in keeping the money flowing, conservative House members need to personalize spending reductions to counter the liberal argument that cutting anything will mean starving grandmothers and abandoning children to the streets. "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," said
Each program Republicans want to cut should be subject to four questions: 1. Is it necessary? 2. Could it be done better and more responsibly in the private sector? 3. Is it constitutionally justifiable? 4. Can we afford it? Don't families have to ask similar questions about affordability and necessity when trying to reduce their debt? Why can't government do the same? Members should embrace the work of Citizens Against Government Waste, www.CAGW.org, which has compiled 763 recommendations for cutting wasteful spending it calls "Prime Cuts." CAGW estimates that if all its suggestions were adopted, taxpayers would save Take one of their many examples: elimination of the Essential Air Service, which According to CAGW, "the most absurd recipients of EAS subsidies is the There are thousands of programs like this. Each one needs to be exposed as wasteful and unaffordable. The "granny" and "what about the children?" argument should be confronted and shown to be the fraud that it is and a manipulative technique for maintaining the status quo. So should threats to close libraries, as Mayor Liberals have long played political theater by bringing people to So, let the spending cuts begin, but let Republican conservatives demonstrate a better way, which is freedom from addiction to government. The addicted will learn that economic freedom is on a par with political freedom. It begins when federal and state governments start cutting up their "credit cards."
JWR contributor Cal Thomas is co-author with Bob Beckel, a liberal Democratic Party strategist, of "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America". Comment by clicking here.
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