The Federal Budget - Cut, Cap & Balance

Conservative Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina is pushing the notion to Cut and Cap federal spending, along with a Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment, as conditions to raise the National Debt Ceiling from the current $14.3 trillion to probably $16 trillion or more.   DeMint knows very well that if the Debt Ceiling is raised without these conditions that politicians of both political parties will just go on borrowing and implementing the deficit spending that is bankrupting our country.  That is certainly true regarding Socialist President Obama's plans to increase the National Debt by another $12 trillion in the next ten years, which is insane, assuming the Markets even allow it to occur.

The facts are clear.   The federal government currently employs about 2.65 million civilian employees, including Post Office workers, making the federal government the largest employer in the country.  Wal Mart, whose gross revenues are bigger than the GDP of 18 countries, is the second largest employer with about 2.1 million employees.  Give or take a few hundred thousand, the number of civilian federal employees has been constant for years under both Republican and Socialist Presidents.  Of course, the Socialists argue that this number of employees has not increased much even though the population has grown to about 310 million people.    The only problem with that argument is a little thing called automation and the computer, which allows the same amount of work to be done with fewer employees, even if they are less productive.   

The federal government maintains over 1,300 departments, agencies and commissions, across the three branches of government, employing these 2.65 million civilian employees, touching virtually every aspect of personal and business life.   When Washington was President, we had four cabinet departments.  Today, there are 15 cabinet departments with overlapping responsibilities.  Federal government employees average total compensation and benefits of $106,871 compared to an average of $53,288 in the private sector thanks to union collective bargaining that is bankrupting our country.  

And, everyone knows that government employees are not nearly as productive as private sector employees, as a result of union rules and since it is almost impossible to fire a government employee.  In fact, it probably takes two government employees to produce the work of one private sector employee.   So whenever Socialists refer to FAT CATS in business, all should know that they are really talking about government union employees, that make far more money than is typical in the private sector, for like work.  

Today, under Obama, the federal government consumes about 25% of GDP, the highest since World War II.   When local and state employees are added in, that number grows to 40% of GDP as another 15,000,000 or more local and state workers are added to the mix.  To put this in perspective, about 18,000,000 of the 150,000,000 working Americans, or about 12%, are local, state or federal government employees.  In their wildest dreams, our Founding Fathers could never have imagined a government apparatus this big, or this intrusive into every aspect of daily life.   And, the reality is that aside from the assault on our freedom that is the end result of all this government intrusion, the 50% of us that pay all the taxes in the United States, simply cannot support all of this any longer.   The balloon has burst.  WE THE PEOPLE are standing up to say NO MORE!

It is time to get rid of many of those 1,300 federal government agencies, commissions and departments and in doing so to get the federal government back to no more than 15 - 18% of GDP.   That means laying off lots of federal government employees.   And by the way, the same thing needs to happen at the local and state levels.   There is so much waste, fraud and corruption in government that is bankrupting our country that we can tolerate it no longer.     

As such, as Republicans in particular consider raising the Debt Ceiling, the notion of Cut, Cap and a Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment must be the conditions for a Yes vote.   To do otherwise would be completely irresponsible and most likely will result in primary challenges.  In fact, any Republican that fails to sign the Cut, Cap and Balance Pledge should not be elected, or re-elected to office.   Jon Huntsman, Republican candidate for the  Presidency has refused to sign the pledge and as such, Huntsman should not be the Republican nominee.  We must get serious about ending the deficit spending that is bankrupting our country.  Voting to increase the Debt Ceiling, without these conditions, would just be more of the same and is therefore unacceptable.