Mark Neumann: “My background is as a math teacher and then as a home-builder, and I kind of combined the things I learned in both of…”

“My background is as a math teacher and then as a home-builder, and I kind of combined the things I learned in both of those to figure out a very straightforward procedure to do it. For any of our colleagues listening tonight, we have the details of this plan laid out from start to finish, from 2002 forward as to exactly how to go about it. It is very interesting what is happening to revenue at the Federal Government. Revenue to the Federal Government grows for two reasons. It grows because of inflation, that is, if you get a pay raise next year, you pay a little more in taxes, that is inflation, but it also grows because of real growth in the economy. So in our present situation we are looking at inflation of roughly 3 percent and real growth of roughly 2 percent. Revenues to the Federal Government then go up by 3 plus 2, or 5 percent to the Federal Government. Our suggestion is very simply that once we reach balance in 2002, we cap spending increases at a rate 1 percent below the rate of revenue growth. I might point out, much to the chagrin of some of our fellow colleagues out here that would prefer to see Government actually shrinking much faster, that when we do this plan, when we cap spending increases at a rate 1 percent below the rate of revenue growth, we are still in a situation where the Government is expanding faster than the rate of inflation.”