On the recordJanuary 21, 2010
If you are concerned about runaway Federal spending and a rising national debt, you won't find a lot of comfort in today's headlines. After passing a government takeover of health care costing over $1 trillion and a budget that will triple the national debt in the next 10 years, Democrat leaders are now talking about actually bringing legislation that will raise our debt limit by $1.9 trillion. But we are told by the same Democratic leadership that they are going to get serious in 2010 about fiscal discipline. I guess, along those lines, President Obama is expected to announce a bipartisan commission that will look for ways to reduce deficits in the future. Sounds like an appealing idea, but the devil is always in the details in Washington, D.C. The President's commission on close examination actually looks like a guard dog with no bite. It looks like fiscal discipline, but it could be easily ignored by Congress. Remarkably, the President's proposal, as I have heard about it, is prohibited from recommending cuts in any discretionary spending. That will be about $1.4 trillion. And the bridge to nowhere, that is completely off-limits. And, as many of us know, with the partisan bias and the structure of it, as reported, it is likely this commission will just be an excuse to raise taxes. The American people don't want more government, more taxes, and more political posturing about spending.
