A Balanced Approach to Our Budget
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A Balanced Approach to Our Budget Over the past few years Congress has wrestled with how to address the deepest recession in generations, while also managing the mounting debt caused by unpaid wars and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Instead of a constructive debate on these issues, an ideologically-based standoff led to the downgrade of the U.S.’s credit rating and the passage of the Budget Control Act in 2011. Passage of this bill staved off a potential economic catastrophe, but it also established a high-stakes path forward intended to force a bipartisan compromise. The failure to reach a compromise agreement since last year has been a disappointment for Hawaii’s families. They want to see a balanced, forward-thinking approach to our budget that makes cuts that won’t hinder our growth, ends the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent among us to ensure we are all paying our fair share, and protects Social Security, Medicare and benefits for veterans. We also have to ensure that we have adequate means to support a strong national defense, ensure families make ends meet and small businesses succeed, and meet long-term goals like energy independence. These principles form the basis of how Congresswoman Hirono approaches cutting the deficit, and her recognition that we can’t meet our nation’s vital needs simply by making massive cuts. Congresswoman Hirono believes we need a fair balance between cutting spending and raising revenue to get our deficit under control. However, she also believes we need a long-term plan to generate the economic growth that will support the quality of life we have come to expect for years to come. That’s why investments that create jobs, like fixing our roads, harbors, and airports, and investing in education and workforce training are so important. Growing our economy and getting people back to work helps to reduce spending and increase revenues—while ensuring that families aren’t going without critical necessities. Below are some of the areas Congresswoman Hirono believes we should examine as we look for a balanced approach to reducing the deficit: · Let’s look first to make cuts in areas where we can root out fraud and waste. The President has proposed government-wide savings of $102 billion in the next decade from investing in cracking down on error and fraud in payments and making administrative changes—some as simple as putting more government resources online instead of printing copies, and other as significant as cracking down on Medicare fraud. · For example, there are estimates that we spend $60 billion annually in Medicare fraud. If we were to attack this full force, we’d save $600 billion over 10 years. In Fiscal Year 2011, the Obama Administration recovered over $4.1 billion. · She also supported the 2010 Statutory Pay As You Go (PAYGO) Act, which was signed into law by President Obama and requires that new programs be paid for by either cutting old programs or raising new revenues. It was this type of budgeting during the 1990's that produced a budget surplus of $230 billion in 2000. · That law also required the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to provide an annual report outlining areas where the federal government is duplicating efforts. These reports provide useful recommendations for cutting red tape, improving efficiency, and saving taxpayer funds that can be carried out directly by the Administration, or that need legislation to achieve. · She also supports passage of the DATA Act, which would institute common-sense policies that will make federal spending more transparent, easier to track, and easier to spot abuse or fraud. This bill passed the House on April 26, 2012. · With the end of the war in Iraq and assuming a responsible drawdown of our commitments in Afghanistan, the Congressional Budget Office projects we will save $1.4 trillion over ten years. We also need to look closely at our tax code. Since the last major reform in 1986, our tax code has become a complicated swiss cheese of giveaways to big corporations and the wealthiest among us—while failing to adequately finance the investments in health, education, clean energy, and transportation that are essential to a growing, competitive, middle-class based economy for the 21st century. Some tax breaks that should be eliminated immediately in order to start reigning in our deficit are: · Ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% will save us $830 billion over the next ten years. This $830 billion is comprised of $690 billion from ending tax cuts and $140 billion in additional payments on the debt. · Ending tax breaks for big oil will save us $41 billion over the next ten years. · Current law provides companies that outsource jobs a tax deduction that allows them to write off the cost of relocating to other countries, and also provides loopholes for shifting profits earned from U.S. patents and trademarks to foreign subsidiaries. Closing these loopholes would save approximately $2 billion over 10 years. And Congresswoman Hirono led by example by voting to cut her own Congressional office budget by six percent in the past year. Congresswoman Hirono believes we all have to be willing to work together to come up with a balanced compromise. In any agreement related to the federal budget there are going to be competing priorities and the end result will inevitably include some things we don’t like. Her hope as we move forward is that we’ll be able to compromise and come to an agreement on a balanced approach to reducing the deficit. |
