Issue Position: Government Budget and Spending

Issue Position

We must slash spending and balance the federal budget within the next three years. No organization can survive if it is unable to find a way to be financially self-sustaining.

The three-year timetable provides a sufficient window for responsible leaders to develop a level-headed approach to cutting spending without eliminating essential services as authorized by the constitution.

The Preamble to the Constitution, quoted in the introduction to this Platform, clearly limits the size and scope of the federal government to the following: "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…"

Any activity that is outside this scope of authority is NOT the responsibility of the federal government. Those functions should be returned to the states and their federal bureaucracies dismantled.

The first, and primary purpose of the federal government is to provide for the common defense.

And, the phrase "promote the general Welfare" refers to commerce and trade, not food stamps and EBT cards.

By shrinking the federal government to its constitutionally authorized functions, its financial requirements will be dramatically reduced.

We, as a nation, need to become self-sufficient. This country has the natural and human resources to supply our own food, energy and essential needs, without the need for importing our basic necessities.

A concerted effort to become "self-sufficient" will renew our economy by providing additional jobs for our workers, keeping our dollars at work domestically, providing additional resources with which we can "promote the general welfare" and make us less dependent on nations that do not share the American dream.

Source