This country is more than $19 trillion in debt. Our pattern of unsustainable spending means that interest payments on our debt will soon rise to the point where balancing the budget as a matter of policy is beyond the reach of Congress. We shouldn’t let that happen. I have a Penny Plan that would balance the budget in five years. The Penny Plan, or the “One Percent Spending Reduction Act of 2016”, would cut a single penny from every dollar the federal government spends.

Though only a one percent cut, the savings add up quickly to balance the budget. And if it’s done right, where we’re eliminating duplication and sensibly prioritizing, discomfort will be manageable. If we do nothing, we’ll experience devastation instead of discomfort.

Living with 1 percent less is a small price to pay in order to help bring this country back from the brink of catastrophic fiscal failure. When a balanced budget is achieved, the bill would place a cap on total spending each year at 18 percent of GDP. Over a 10-year budget window, the bill would cut spending by about $8.7 trillion.

The Penny Plan doesn’t mandate any specific cuts. Congress would have the authority to make targeted cuts and focus on the worst first, but would be required to meet the 1 percent overall cut. Everything would be on the table. And I would argue that we should focus on identifying and eliminating all of the wasteful spending that occurs in Washington before we look to other important programs and services. Cut the worst first. Let’s be smart about the spending cuts and prioritize how we spend taxpayers’ dollars instead of administrators proposing cuts that will cause the most public outcry so there is pressure to restore funding.

If we don’t act and cut spending, our money will go toward paying the interest on the debt instead of defense, infrastructure projects, and important government services. Last year we were paying approximately $223 billion a year in interest alone on the national debt. If rates go up slightly, as predicted, within 10 years we will be paying around $839 billion a year to our creditors in interest. That’s a huge increase in the amount of money we’ll be paying for interest alone on the debt, and it doesn’t buy anything. A large portion of it just pays people in other countries for loaning us money.

My Penny Plan is not only simple and straightforward; it is something Americans can relate to with their individual and family budgets. No fudging numbers, no smoke-and-mirrors accounting, just cutting the equivalent of a single penny from every dollar we spend till we balance the budget, and then setting a strict spending limit to force congress to spend within its means. Let’s take away the federal government’s credit cards. We have to take a stand or in the near future our future will be dimmer than it has been in generations. There’s light at the end of the tunnel if we are willing to move toward it.