Leave it to a couple of Tea Party guys in Flyover America to show Washington’s professional politicians how to come up with a reasonable annual federal budget at a time of grave economic crisis and political deadlock.
Chris Littleon and Dan Lilback are, according to The Hill, which published their budget oped, “Tea Party leaders in Ohio and work with the Ohio Liberty Council, a statewide coalition of more than 65 liberty-minded organizations.”
Instead of beginning with last year’s federal budget with its $1.4 trillion deficit as a starting point, Littleton and Lilbank did the imminently logical approach of starting with a budget the country did just fine witht a mere decade ago, the 2000 Clinton budget.
Here’s what they came up with:
“Adjusting that budget for inflation to match 2011 levels, an increase of 33 percent since 2000, the final number would be $2.3 trillion,” Littleton and Lilback said.
“The Clinton years were fraught with hardcore budget-busting procedures and red-hot rhetoric, yet Bill Clinton ran a $230 billion surplus in Fiscal Year 1999/2000. In 2010, the Federal Budget exceeded $3.5 trillion, a 58 percent increase over the inflation-adjusted 2000 budget.”
Those numbers represent a devastating indictment of the Bush and Obama administrations, as well as the Republican and Democratic majorities that have presided over Congress during those years since Clinton’s last annual budget.
Can the current Congress, starting with the Republican House, do what Littleton and Lilback recommend? Of course they can, if they have the political will and common sense to do this:
“It would require trimming, but we could live on the same personal income we had a few years ago. That is exactly what we are demanding from Congress. They must take a very serious look at where our money really goes: Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, defense and the Treasury (mostly payment on the debt). These 4 areas of expenditure eclipse all federal tax revenue before we even consider any other departments that make up the remainder of the budget.”
Will they do it? We will get the answer to that question in the next several weeks.
For more from Littleton and Lilback, go here.
