Whether it’s your business, your farm or your family, there is one constant responsibility which holds true – you simply can’t spend more than you take in. Continually running a deficit would require the doors of your business to close, your farm to stop producing, and the house your family lives in to be seized by creditors.
Whether it’s your business, your farm or your family, there is one constant responsibility which holds true – you simply can’t spend more than you take in. Continually running a deficit would require the doors of your business to close, your farm to stop producing, and the house your family lives in to be seized by creditors.
Unfortunately that same fundamental concept of the balancing of budgets eludes this White House. Faced with a tumbling stock market, GDP growth slowing to less than 1% per quarter, and new and dangerous threats to our national security, I hoped this week’s 10 year budget submission from the president would be reflective of the new world we live in.
Instead what we got was a fiscal blueprint which guarantees that our government’s books never balance, makes no attempt to responsibly prioritize necessary spending, and assures that your federal government grows in size & power at the expense of your liberties and the rights guaranteed to you by the U.S. Constitution.
When the president took office, our federal debt stood at around $10.5 trillion – a shockingly scary number that had our country on a path only known by nations such as Greece. At that time, it was a level of debt which surpassed that amassed by every other president, combined.
You can imagine the horror this week then when I saw that under the president’s plan spending would grow by 23% or $2.5 trillion and our national debt would explode to over $27 trillion by 2026 – that’s a 150% increase in the debt load shared by every man, woman, and child in the U.S. since the president took office. In other words, that’s a burden of over $1,000,000 of federal debt for every U.S. family! Simply put, this president’s budget never balances, not in 10, 20 or 35 years, never.
At a time when the world is becoming darker, more uncertain and more dangerous, the president is simultaneously proposing slashing the very Department of Defense budget which helps keeps the doors locked, the fences up and the ammunition supplied. For 2017, the president is suggesting a national defense budget of 14.4% of total spending. In comparison, President Reagan spent an average of 27% of the federal budget on defense, even President Carter’s defense budget was 23% of total federal spending. With North Korea testing nuclear weapons, the Taliban gaining strength, Iran detaining U.S. Navy forces and ISIS continuing to instigate new and aggressive attacks, it is shocking that the president seems to think now is the right time to call for a US Navy smaller than before World War II and an Air Force half the size it was during the first Gulf War.
As if all this wasn’t enough, the president is proposing a maze of $2.6 trillion in new and complex taxes to further hamstring the very small businesses and farmers who will help turn this nation around. On small businesses the president’s manifest calls for an increase in the tax rate of close to 45%, just at the federal level. On farmers the president thinks it’s unfair for you to leave your family farm to the next generation and is proposing reinstating the death tax at higher levels. On families the president is calling for a new 25 cent per gallon tax to fund initiatives like self-driving green cars. I’m not sure how often the president gets to interact with folks at the gas station, but I haven’t had a single Missourian complain to me about paying less at the pump lately. We should be discussing new ideas to lower energy rates for businesses and families by maximizing our domestic energy resources, not taxing them to keep them locked up in the ground.
I have made it a habit to visit as many different high schools as I can in Missouri’s 8th Congressional district. After a couple of those visits, you find that some of the questions the students ask begin to repeat themselves. One of my favorites is being asked to discuss the U.S. Constitution and some of the words which mean the most to me. It is weeks like this which make me happy to smile back and recite the first line of the 22nd amendment to the U.S Constitution, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice…”
