Issue Position: The Deficit

Issue Position

The primary causes of our growing deficit are:

Health Care Costs
Defense
Tax Expenditures (loopholes)
Interest on the Debt
The Affordable Care Act will reduce the rate of health care growth but fundamental changes of our health delivery system must be implemented to reduce cost and improve quality.

The U.S. spends more on defense than the next nine countries combined and we can no longer afford to do that. We must start by closing some of the more than 1000 foreign bases (including the Italian Riviera Resort base); auditing defense contracts and the restructuring of our defense system to meet the needs of today's threats.

Tax loopholes are actually "tax expenditures" according to the Joint Reduction Deficit Committee. These expenditures account for as much as 1.1 trillion dollars a year in lost revenue. We need to close these loopholes as soon as possible.

As the deficit grows, interest payments continue to grow as a larger portion of our federal budget.

Finally, we need to elect representatives that will make fixing the deficit a priority over their need to get special interest money for their re-elections.

Source