Op-Ed: The Most Dangerous Credit Card

Op-Ed

The Most Dangerous Credit Card

By Representatives Kevin Brady and Jason Chaffetz

Hard-working Americans have had enough of outrageous government spending -- and they are not going to stand for it anymore.

Enough is enough. A trillion dollars here, a trillion there -- doesn't this new Democratic Congress understand there is no "free money"? At this rate, will the average American family ever again see a balanced federal budget in their lifetime?

It's time to sunset wasteful Washington spending. That's why we are co-chairing a bold new effort by House conservatives to root out government programs and agencies that taxpayers don't need and then send them riding off into the sunset WITHOUT any more of our hard-earned tax dollars.

The newly formed Sunset Caucus and its 42 members have one goal: to protect taxpayers and shrink the behemoth that is our federal government. We will do it -- one wasteful, duplicative, or unnecessary program at a time.

Every member of this Caucus has committed themselves to adopt one or more federal programs they believe has outlived their usefulness (or never should have been enacted) and publicly champion their elimination, including offering zero-funding amendments this summer to the twelve spending bills that fund the national government.

So far the Caucus has identified nearly a half a trillion dollars -- $472 billion -- of wasteful spending. They include the unspent portion of the controversial economic stimulus boondoggle, Americorps (the federal program where "volunteers" get paid for community service), the heavily subsidized and money losing Amtrak, the failed presidential election fund, millions of dollars for the national party conventions, a "diplomatic attaché" in Paris for the Department of Education, paying federal workers with tax dollars so they can work on union organizing activities and payments to countries to take Guantanamo Bay terrorists out of a perfectly good high security prison.

Do you know we spend $8.7 million dollars a year to connect whalers in Massachusetts with their whaling ancestors in Alaska and Hawaii? To pay for just one program like that means dedicating all the federal taxes from families in a small rural town of 1,800. With federal deficits running into unimaginable numbers, can we really afford these types of frivolous programs? Is this how people want their hard-earned dollars spend?

The Congressional voting card has become the most dangerous credit card on the face of the planet. There are no limits, no repercussions and no penalties for overuse.

But, the problem is -- it's not our money, it's yours, America.

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