Budgeting Made Easy

Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, most Americans  who look at the budget  have to agree that spending has to be reined in and the budget balanced. We cannot continue to raise taxes on the "wealthy" for in not too long, there will be none left. The golden goose can only lay so many eggs!

Additionally, we must control the "entitlement programs" of Welfare and Medicaid. If not, they will bankrupt this country. These are the biggest drivers of the deficit and without controlling them there is no America.

Only in Washington is a reduction in the increase of spending called a cut. In our little pea brains, a cut is a decrease in what we spent last year. So, we would like to see a budget that held spending level for EVERY spending category for the next five years. Zero increases. If a budget line was $5 billion last year, it would get $5 billion this year and for the next half decade.  Our government statisticians tell us that inflation is around 2%, so that would only be a 2% (real world) cut. Couldn't we absorb such a small reduction?

How many businesses have reduced their employees salaries 10 or 15% over the past five years or reduced hours or laid off people? The answer is many. How much have our Representatives, Senators, President and civil servant salaries been cut? Believe us, they have not.  Why not? Aren't they "entitled" to an increase. Heck no! 

Time to making budgeting an easy enterprise. Level the spending, no increase, no CPI increases, the same dollars. Make government live on the money they spent last year. Seems reasonable to us!  What about you?

Conservative Tom

P.S. If we used the Conservative Tom budget model,  we would not have to put up with the lies, misrepresentations, false warnings, false promises, rosy guarantees and more lies that we will hear as the budget process starts. The following is the first of many articles which will be presented to show how bad (or good) one side or the others program is. 

 

GOP Says Congressional Democrats’ New Budget Would Jack Federal Spending 62 Percent In 10 Years

March 15, 2013 by Ben Bullard 

Senate Republicans have wasted no time in dismantling the budget proposed Wednesday by the Democrat-led Senate Budget Committee. The Republican arm of the same committee released a series of graphics on its website showing what the Democrats’ proposal would do to Federal spending if projected across a 10-year span.

Of particular interest are three charts, the first of which demonstrates how the proposal would more than double Federal spending from where it stood only six years ago, from $2.7 trillion in 2007 to a projected $5.7 trillion in 2023:

More interesting is where the Democrats’ budget allocates the additional spending: entitlements. Under the plan, annual welfare entitlements would grow from their present mark of just under $800 billion to roughly $1.4 trillion in 2022, crossing the trillion-dollar threshold in a matter of only three years:

Finally, the Democrats’ proposed budget nullifies any perceived “deficit reductions” achieved through “sequestration” by means of $1.6 trillion in new taxes, just in 2013, setting a pace that would bloat entitlement-driven Federal spending by $8.6 trillion over the course of the next decade.

As of this moment, that’s more than half the standing U.S. National debt — in its entirety.

Fair play, if you can call it that: For their part, the Democrats claim their plan “only” raises$975 billion over the next decade. Whether you buy the GOP’s interpretation or the Democrats’ spin, under any scenario it means accelerated spending that, if left in place,would obliterate any hope of ever balancing the budget — to say nothing of reducing the National debt.