Balancing the Budget - No Pain, Today

Between a President who has approved the largest budgets ever (both percentage wise and total dollars), a cut & spend Republican congress (you know things are bad when the Democrats are the party of fiscal sanity), the Iraq war, and Katrina - we have to get our fiscal house in order.

I know George Bush wanted to have the chickens come home to roost after he left office. But he ran up the credit cards so fast, we can't wait until 2008 and leave the problem for whoever comes next. It has to be done now.

So here is my proposal for getting our fiscal house in order. And it requires very little pain for about 95% of the people in the country.

1. Remove every targeted item from the recent highway bill. This is pure pork and the items are not needed by anyone.
2. Remove every item in the energy bill that provides money to the large oil companies. Their profits this year are so large they probably won't notice the difference.
3. Phase out farm price supports at 20%/year over the next 5 years. These go to people who are much better off than the average American. And by reducing demand for food from the 3rd world, they presently reduce the standard of living for the very poor in the 3rd world. (Eliminate the sugar subsidies immediately - those are so indefensible that they don't need 5 years.)
4. Eliminate corporate welfare. Everyone knows what it is - the trick is to have a single bill that takes all of it out at once. Otherwise each congressperson is left trying to keep the pieces in for their companies, and they all support each other.

And finally, no tax cuts until the budget is balanced. There can be balancing where one tax goes up and another goes down in a revenue neutral matter. But it has to be revenue neutral every year - no one tax down this year and some other tax that "will" go up in the future.

And no tax cuts against spending cuts - especially unspecified future spending cuts. The income stream holds steady or goes up until the budget is balanced.

And for most people, and even for most corporations, this is to their benefit. Because if the deficit continues, there will be a recession and interest rates will rise. Because the market will force us to get our fiscal house in order if we don't do it ourselves.

But if there is a recession and high interest rates, that will hurt more than the steps above. All it takes is for some of the people in Washington to act in a grown up fiscally responsible manner.