Saturday, February 10, 2018

Cut Federal Spending

(Table Infrastructure until 2019)

Jim Rickards appeared on Fox Business News with Stuart Varney on 2/8/18 and made his case that the stock market is balking because of the US government debt problem.


I liked what Rickards said, because I am convinced that the “infrastructure” spending should not be pushed.  I would prefer that Congress balance their budget and live within their means in 2018.

Table Infrastructure Spending
I think Trump should pivot and table his $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan until 2019.

Trump should repeal Obamacare and Immigration reform and propose a plan to cut all unnecessary federal spending to make the Democrats go nuts. How about starting with the $2 billion a year Congress spends on Refugee Resettlement?

You can tell what spending is unnecessary by identifying the political sacred cows. We see a lot of federal tax dollars being squandered on federal transportation grants to states for “green space”, roundabouts, bike lanes and parks. No federal or state tax dollars should go to these. If cities and counties want this stuff, they should have to raise their own funding.

Trump should also slam the door on the DACA carping and publish the new Immigration Law. Trump should fund the wall with the grants to states he will eliminate. I think if Trump slaps the Democrats around enough, they may settle down and start making sense.

Trump needs to turn over federal lands, education and infrastructure to the States. We need to demand that the State infrastructure dollars we do spend have simple, solid designs and the lowest cost and fund most of it through city and county local taxes. 

The Fed needs to keep interest rates at current levels to keep from raising the interest cost of the annual US federal government deficit until the national debt is back down to $5 trillion.

What’s wrong with tabling infrastructure spending until 2019, so we can see how much we increase GDP in 2018?  It’s bad enough to have $100 billion in weather bailouts to pay in 2018. We also have a $25 billion wall to build as quickly as we can.

The $1.5 trillion tax cut in 2018 means the federal government just cut its revenue by $1.5 trillion. The Budget is based on $4.1 trillion and the $1.5 trillion in cuts is over 10 years, so the actual revenue cut is really $150 billion a year.

The corporate tax rate reduction had to be made to allow companies to return operations to the US. The individual tax rate reduction was not necessary, but was more politically motivated to send a message to US taxpayers.  The real redemption of the taxpayers will be the return of manufacturing jobs to the US, to give them a chance to rebuild the middle class.

If the reforms Trump made in 2018 and those in the pipeline result in a higher GDP for 2018, we can tackle infrastructure in 2019. The Senate is in the tank with the Democrats on spending an extra $300 billion except for Rand Paul, and you would think most Republicans in House would also be against it, but they weren’t.  Republicans handed the Democrats and extra $150 billion for pork and sabotage in exchange for their promise to stop carping about DACA.

Double Standard
Democrats are saying “We can blow $10 trillion between 2009 and 2016, but Republicans can’t spend a dime more than they are willing to raise with new taxes”.

On the $300 billion spending increase, Democrats are demanding that Congress include an extra $150 billion on social programs or they will oppose the extra $150 billion increase for the Military.

How about, Republicans can eliminate funding of every Democrat “sacred cow” and spend that on what Republicans want to spend the money on. I would quit the UN, stop all foreign aid, cut all welfare programs for non-citizens, end all federal grants to states, especially to universities, end all grants to non-profits, sell all federal land and terminate federal pensions. That works for me. That should give us more than enough cash to build a wall and it will make the Democrats crazy.


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

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