OFRG: Stop Federal Spending, Reduce Debt

From Oklahomans For Responsible Government ~ Republican leaders in the U.S. House are talking about possibly holding up a vote to raise the debt ceiling to use as leverage to get spending cuts from President Obama.

It’s a drastic measure, but one that should be considered.

One of the reasons Republicans made so many gains in last week’s election is that government spending is out of control. If Republicans truly feel that spending needs to be cut, they should use whatever resources are at their disposal to do so.

Over a year ago, we called on President Obama to use his veto power on bills for new programs that didn’t make cuts elsewhere. The president made it seem like he was powerless to stop spending by Congress when he is not.

In the same way, House Republicans need to stick with their principles.

A quick look at a spreadsheet from the White House Office of Management and Budget shows that holding federal spending to around $3-trillion dollars for the next few years should result in reducing the national debt by a trillion dollars. Holding federal spending to the amount of money collected the previous year would reduce the federal debt by around $700-billion. Surely the idea of spending the amount you knew was collected last year is a common-sense way of budgeting.

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