Issue Position: Balance the National Budget

Issue Position

Issue Position: Balance the National Budget

Federal government spending is spiraling out of control and few in Congress are willing to make the hard choices to bring our budget back into balance.

Restore Fiscal Responsibility

With a national debt that is now over $9 trillion and hundreds of billions in annual budget deficits, we are endangering the fiscal security of our future generations and jeopardizing our place in the world economy.

I am a strong supporter of "pay-as-you-go" budget rules that require offsetting cuts to existing programs and waste in order to pay for either new spending or new tax cuts. Controlling wasteful spending is important, but we also need to return sanity to our tax code. Thousands of pages of loopholes and exemptions mean that middle class Americans are left footing the bill, while big corporations and people with clever accountants avoid hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes.

Stop Governing by Credit Card

After nearly eight years of huge deficits and two major wars funded through foreign loans, it comes as little surprise that the dollar's value is dropping fast. We cannot rely on the Federal Reserve to get us out of this by simply printing more money. The so-called economic stimulus package exemplifies the same short-sighted, politically-expedient thinking that avoids all the hard choices. Borrowing more money from China only adds to our problems. Bringing the Iraq War to a responsible end would put hundreds of billions back into domestic spending and let us begin to pay down a national debt that costs nearly $300 billion a year in interest payments alone.

Demand Honest Government

Lastly, it's time to bring an end to Washington's culture of corruption and special interests through Minnesota-style ethics reform. We need a total ban on gifts from lobbyists, full transparency for all earmarks, and real penalties for violations, not just a slap on the wrist.

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