Federal Spending Cuts

Each year, the President submits a budget to Congress. The history of these budget submissions is as follows:

In the last 6 years of the Clinton administration, the federal budget grew from $1.6 trillion in 1996 to $1.9 trillion in 2000.

In the 8 years of the Bush administration the federal budget grew from $2 trillion in 2001 to $3.5 trillion in 2008. 

In the 8 years of the Obama administration the federal budget grew from $3.5 trillion in 2008 to $4.2 trillion in 2016.

In 2017, under the Trump administration the federal budget shrank from $4.2 trillion to $4.1 trillion.

US GDP was $19.739 trillion in 2017. That includes all levels of government spending of $6 trillion.  The GDP for the US private sector economy was $13.739 trillion.

Going forward, the US needs to grow its private sector economy and shrink its public sector spending in order to return to a normal free market economy.

This can be accomplished by reducing uncompetitive government services. They should be privatized, especially if they require large capital investment to upgrade their infrastructure or are not “enumerated powers” allowed under the US Constitution.

We should be returning federal land to the States to put this land to productive use,

We should privatize Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae lending to the private sector.

We also need to reduce and eliminate spending on most federal grants. Industries should pay for their own research and defunding non-profits will eliminate tax subsidized political activity to allow voters to have a greater voice in public policy.

We should eliminate all government subsidies for services that can be provided without subsidies by the private sector, like public transit. We need to privatize most government services.

We need to reduce the cost of education, healthcare and welfare by redefining it.  Education and healthcare need to be privatized and welfare needs to be replaced with jobs. Immigrants need to able to support themselves without welfare and refugees don’t need to be warehoused in the US.

Restricting campaign contributions to individual US citizen legal registered voters will eliminate most undue special interest control over government legislatures. The current campaign finance laws allow too many corrupt practices and the cost of holding elective office is too high to attract the right candidates.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader