Heidi Alexander: “finally, Washington is taking some responsibility for spending money that we don't have. At a time when the Federal…”

“finally, Washington is taking some responsibility for spending money that we don't have. At a time when the Federal Government is borrowing 40 cents of every dollar it spends, this is a welcome change in behavior. I gladly support it. Make no mistake, this is a change in behavior--from spend, spend, spend, to cut, cut, cut. Let me give you one example. On Christmas Eve 2010 Congress raised the debt ceiling and attached to it $1 trillion in new spending over 10 years in the new health care law. This time, for every dollar we are raising the debt ceiling, we are reducing spending by a dollar, not adding to it. This reduction in spending over 10 years is about $2.4 trillion. Here is another example: According to Senator Portman, who used to be the Nation's budget director, the CBO would say if Congress did this kind of dollar-for-dollar reduction for spending every time a President asked us to raise the debt ceiling, we would balance the budget in 10 years. Here is another: The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that because of these spending cuts, the discretionary part of the budget, which is about 39 percent of the entire Federal budget, will grow over the next 10 years at a little less than the rate of inflation. If we could control the rest of the budget so that it would grow to anything close to the rate of inflation, we would balance the budget in no time. Balancing the budget is exactly what our goal ought to be.…”