"Every politician now says we need to significantly reduce our national debt. The Democrats’ eternal answer is to cut virtually nothing and to increase revenue by raising taxes. The only thing this would do—and all it has ever done—is give Washington, DC the ability to spend more money. This is the reason we have such massive debt in the first place.
Our only hope for reducing the national debt currently lies with the Republican Party, but only a very small handful of Republicans are serious about reducing it. The current hoopla over whether or not to raise the debt ceiling is primarily a debate over simply capping spending, not cutting it. Rep. Paul’s Ryan’s controversial entitlement reform plan is primarily aimed at saving Medicare, not reducing spending. When the Republican-controlled House was given the chance to actually fight for spending cuts in April, it settled on $38 billion in “cuts” to proposed future spending—and even this bit of useless politicking was later reduced to a measly $352 million. Remember, our national debt stands at well over $14 trillion. Clearly the Republican Party of John Boehner is not serious about sizable spending cuts.
So who is? The most significant Republican proposal to actually reduce spending to a degree in tune with the severity of our problem was put forth by Sen. Rand Paul. Paul introduced a plan in March that would balance the budget in five years and reduce the debt by $4 trillion. Paul’s plan sought not simply to stop or reform spending—but to cut it—the very thing virtually every Republican claims to support and agrees must happen.
Paul’s proposal failed in the Senate 7-90. All seven “yea” votes were Republican.
Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina was one of those Republicans. During an interview on WTMA talk radio in Charleston, South Carolina last week, talk host Richard Todd asked Sen. Lindsey Graham about his South Carolina colleague’s “yea” vote: “I wanted to ask you Sen. Graham because I know you want to try to get us out of debt. Sen. Rand Paul proposed a budget… that got seven votes… one of them was Jim DeMint… one of them was not yours… so we want to know why you would not have supported a budget that would have balanced the budget in five years, getting serious about it?”
Replied Graham: “I’m not going to vote for any budget that reduces defense spending by over 40%. And I’m not going to vote for any budget that reduces our defense capabilities at a time we’re under threat.”
It was reported last month that the total cost of our Middle East wars post-9/11 stands at $3.7 trillion. This is just the official number—which should be taken about as seriously as Obama’s official cost of national healthcare. $3.7 trillion is also roughly four times the cost of Obamacare—which virtually every Republican agrees America cannot afford"..........................READ MORE
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