Now is the time to balance the budget

By Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) - 02/06/13 04:00 PM ET

Families across the United States have tightened their belts as a result of high unemployment and underemployment, a slow economic recovery and unprecedented uncertainty around their tax burden. What families do when faced with these challenges is set a budget and have a plan to deal with the uncertainty. With looming spending cuts from sequestration and major shortfalls predicted in our mandatory programs, President Obama and Senate Democrats still won’t tell Americans their plan to address these cuts or to control spending in a responsible way. It is time for our bloated government to scale back and stop spending money we don’t have. This should be a no-brainer, and the majority of Americans agree, but unfortunately it seems some government officials haven’t checked their messages.

Each year, the president is required by law to deliver his budget for the upcoming fiscal year to Congress the first Monday in February. But for the fourth time in five years this administration's budget is late. If the president can’t submit a budget to Congress on time, how can we take his claims of wanting to cut the deficit seriously? And Senate Democrats have not only failed to show how they would balance the budget, they’ve gone four years without passing any budget at all. Every family has to balance its budget, and every business must balance its books. Washington should be held to that same standard.
Yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its budget and economic outlook report for the next decade. CBO predicts that economic growth will stay slow this year and that unemployment will remain above 7.5 percent. If CBO is right in its projection, 2014 will mark the sixth consecutive year that unemployment has exceeded 7.5 percent — the longest period of high unemployment in the last 70 years.
Also troubling, the CBO predicts that over 10 years, we will add nearly $7 trillion to the deficit. This is unsustainable, and the only way to prevent more trillion dollar deficits is to pass a responsible budget that cuts spending, balances our budget and puts our economy back on track.
Today, I will vote for the Require a Plan Act. This legislation, introduced by Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), would require the White House to either produce a budget that balances within 10 years or provide a supplemental budget plan by April 1, 2013, that identifies which fiscal year they will achieve a balanced budget. The American people deserve an explanation of why Washington can’t stop wasting their hard-earned tax dollars, and I will continue to support measures to bring wasteful Washington spending under control, balance our budget and hold Washington accountable. Both parties are responsible for the mess we’re in, but it’s time to stop the blame game and step up to the plate. Our children and grandchildren are counting on us.

Roe is a member of the House Education and Workforce Committee.

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Where Is The Balance?

In the past week, I’ve been called a bigot, a hater, had people wish I died, and had people wish Christians had died, been rounded up and killed, or experienced their own personal holocaust.

All this came from proponents of gay marriage. The media won’t cover most of this. The media sees most stories as victims versus victimizers and those who support gay marriage are the victims. They get the positive media coverage.

In reality, though, throughout this week I’ve seen a number of Christians engaged in as much hate filled rhetoric as gay marriage proponents, including the pastor in North Carolina who encouraged parents to beat up their gay acting sons.

As a Christian, I cannot support gay marriage, nor can I accept practicing homosexuality as anything but a sin. At the same time, there are a lot of Christians out there who seem convinced they aren’t sinners. In fact, we are all sinners and as I have matured in my faith, I have a harder and harder time understanding how so many Christians can be so tolerant of so much sin, but treat homosexuality as some sin set apart from all other sins making it a worse sin than, for example, adultery.

This is a political blog and I try to leave my theological ramblings for special occasions, but I think this needs to be said.Christianity is a religion premised on God’s love. We are to hate sin, but we are to love sinners. For non-Christians, that may make them rage about Christian hypocrisy, but it should not. I have gay friends. They all know where I stand on this issue. But they also know that I know that I too am a sinner. For me to love myself and hate them would just be sin on top of sin. We all, like sheep, have gone astray and I am no better than they are nor they better than me.

Hearing a pastor encourage parents to commit violence on their sons because they may be gay is offensive to me. Hearing Christians refer to gays with slurs is offensive. At the same time, hearing gay rights proponents wish Christians would die is equally offensive. Hearing gay rights proponents derisively call a Christian a bigot for standing on principle is offensive.

What many people tend to forget is that Christianity is not a religion premised on some of us getting to heaven and others not. Christianity is actually a religion premised on not one single person getting to Heaven. All of us are on the express train to hell. All of us.

I no more belong in Heaven than the Pope or Billy Graham and they no more belong in Heaven than me. None of us belong there.

We get there by God’s own grace given through our saving faith in Christ. Believing in Christ gets us a “get out of jail free” card, but that card does not mean we don’t belong in jail.

Those of us who are going to Heaven view ourselves as passing through this place. But we have an obligation to fight for what we believe in and to stand up for our values. We know not just that society, over several thousand years, worked out that marriage between a man and woman is the best organization for society and we should not change that just because some people think it would make them happy or be fair.

We also, as Christians, know that marriage is an institution set up by God where man and woman become one being designed to glorify God. That’s why we can’t support changing marriage’s definition.

But as I defend marriage as it exists, and recognize that many opponents on this issue will see anything Christians say and do as examples of bigotry and hate, we Christians should reflect our values with love of our fellow sinners, not condoning violence.

Liberals view the Golden Rule as they do the Commerce Clause — a theological blank slip to justify any action they want as the commerce clause is a constitutional blank slip to do whatever they want legally.

Evangelical Christians should remember the Golden Rule and treat others with the love and respect we wish to be shown. But we should also know the limits of application for the Golden Rule and remember that sometimes loving others means saying no.

The balance in an increasingly secular world is difficult for Christians to maintain. As the world comes down on our values, it is easy to react back with hostility. But as I noted on twitter the other day, for all the people calling me a bigot and saying I am out of step with the advance of history, my response is that I am not concerned about being on the right side of history. I am concerned about whose side I am on, on the last day of history.

There will be a last day. And though I may lose in this lifetime, on the last day Christ wins and I through him.

There are real rights and real wrongs and we should not be so eager to accommodate this world as to be silent on right and wrong. But we should not be so eager to show our separation from this world by pouring out contempt for others who, like ourselves, have fallen short of the glory of God.

The balance is not easy, but let’s try not to go wobbly.

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RSC Budget: Cut, Cap, and Balance is Back – And Here to Stay

Last year, we were proud to be one of the first websites to publicly promote the Republican Study Committee’s Cut, Cap and Balance (CCB) plan.  What started out as an idea hatched by a few principled conservatives grew into a unifying rallying cry for the entire conservative movement.  Sadly, GOP leadership jettisoned the universally-heralded CCB plan in favor of the Budget [Out of] Control Act, which gave Obama another $2.1 trillion in debt authority, while cutting nothing significantly except for defense.

Now, thanks to the indefatigable work of Reps. Jim Jordan, Scott Garrett, Mick Mulvaney, Tom McClintock, and Tim Huelskamp, CCB is back in the form of the annual RSC budget – and it’s here to stay.  The RSC budget – Cut, Cap, and Balance – immediately cuts discretionary spending in FY 2013 by $112 billion from last year’s spending levels, caps future spending at 18-18.7% of GDP, and balances the budget in just 5 years!  Overall, the RSC budget will cut $7.6 trillion relative to Obama’s budget and even $2.3 trillion more than the Ryan budget.

The amazing thing is that the balanced budget is achieved without accounting for the reforms to the biggest drivers of the deficits; Social Security and Medicare.  The budget proposal includes Paul Ryan’s Medicare premium support plan, and even adds Social Security reform (unlike the Ryan budget).  However, those changes don’t begin until after the 10-year budget frame.  As such, none of the savings are included in the budget.

While it is clear that those two leviathans must be reformed in order to maintain a balanced budget in the long-run, this budget illustrates something unique in budget land.  It is the first proposal that shows how to balance the budget in 5 years, even without reforming SS and Medicare immediately.  This does not diminish the importance of reforming those programs; rather it shows how much dead wood is lodged into the rest of the budget – an observation that is often overlooked.

Here is a detailed breakdown of the budget proposal:

Discretionary Spending: This budget sets the FY 2013 discretionary spending cap at $931 billion,roughly equal to 2008 levels.  That’s hardly too much to ask for.  It takes the $1.028 trillion level established in the Ryan budget and bakes in the $97 billion of impending sequester cuts (slated to begin on January 2) into the budget from the beginning of the year.  Specifically, it parries away the cuts from defense spending and directs it to the harmful, wasteful, and unconstitutional government programs and agencies.  The list of programs that will be terminated includes the National Labor Relations Board, Trade Adjustment Assistance, the Presidential Campaign Fund, the Legal Services Corporation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Universal Service Fund, the Economic Development Agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Here is the key point: All discretionary spending is frozen at the $931 billion level until the budget balances in FY 2017.  From FY 2018-2022, growth of discretionary spending is capped to inflation.  Moreover, in order to keep total discretionary spending at this level, while simultaneously providing for our national security needs, the sub-category of defense spending is allowed to rise gradually (the same levels as the Ryan budget), as non-defense discretionary spending actually declines every year until FY 2018.  Overall, the RSC budget saves about $750 billion more in discretionary spending than the Ryan budget.

Medicaid and Welfare: The paramount entitlement reform of the budget is Medicaid reform.  The proposal incorporates the recently-introduced State Health Flexibility Act (H.R. 4160), which combines Medicaid and SCHIP into one block grant to the states, allowing them to do with it whatever they deem prudent.  Unlike the Ryan plan, this proposal would freeze the block grant at FY 2012 levels (in nominal dollars) for ten years. Overall, the RSC budget saves $760 billion more than the Ryan budget from Medicaid/CHIP proposal and over $2 trillion from the current baseline.

For other mandatory programs, the budget incorporates the RSC’s Welfare Reform Act of 2011 (H.R. 1167).  Once unemployment dips below 6.5%, this bill would freeze all spending on the 77 means-tested programs at 2007 levels (pre-recession welfare payments), rising only with inflation.  It would also place some budget constraints on these “mandatory” programs, and subject the Food Stamp program to the same work requirements that were placed on TANF under the 1996 welfare reform bill.  Total savings from welfare reform will be $260 billion over 10 years.

Other reforms include:

Requiring current federal workers to contribute more to their pensions and health benefits, while limiting the rate of growth of federal pensions to the “Chained-CPI.”Cutting agriculture subsidies by abolishing the Direct Payment farm subsidy, the Foreign Market Development Program, and the Market Access Program.Privatizing Freddie and FannieEliminating all mandatory spending for Pell Grants, subjecting 100% of price tag to the annual budget process.

Taxes:  In addition to balancing the budget in 5 years, the RSC plan would also enact pro-growth tax reform, “The Jobs Through Growth Act,” aiming for the same revenue baseline as the Ryan budget.  It would offer an optional transition to a new, flatter system that contains just two rates: 15% (first $50,000 taxable income for single filers, $100,000 for joint filers) and 25% (taxable income above that).  In order to ensure that there is no increased burden on middle-income families with several children; couples would get a $25,000 standard deduction and an additional $12,500 deduction for each dependent.  After this generous pro-family deduction, all other credits and deductions are eliminated, thereby putting an end to market distortions through the tax system.

The bill further calls for abolishing the death tax and AMT.  The corporate tax would be lowered to 25% and transformed to a territorial system.  Capital Gains taxes would be capped at 15% and indexed for inflation, so only the amount of gains beyond the level of inflation would be taxed.  Some other tax proposals offer slightly bolder plans for the capgains and corporate taxes, but the beauty of this plan is that it facilitates a balanced budget, even working with the inaccurate static scoring of the CBO.

In conclusion, this budget offers the broad contours for any serious plan to balance the budget, and more importantly, shrink the size of government.  On Thursday, the Cut, Cap, and Balance budget will be proposed as a floor amendment (H. Con. Res. 113) to the Ryan budget.  This will be one of those votes that shows who is willing to substantiate their commitments to spending cuts and limited government with real action.  It will also grant those who voted to kill CCB last year a second chance to right the ship.

Long live Cut Cap and Balance!

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