Radio America Online News Bureau

spending

The Dems’ Other Target: Alaska Governor Addresses Recall Effort

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Listen to “The Dems’ Other Target: Alaska Governor Addresses Recall Effort” on Spreaker.

While virtually all of the political oxygen is being consumed by the impeachment hearings in Washington, Democrats are looking to remove another Republican executive as well.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy won the Alaska governor’s race in 2018, promising to restore fiscal order in the state. Upon entering office in December of last year, he immediately began cutting spending. The cuts included reductions to the University of Alaska system and Medicaid payments among many other areas. By the end of February, a recall effort was already underway.

“We put in some pretty stiff reductions. And, really, there were reductions across the board and they hit a lot of programs.

“They hit programs that touched upon debt reimbursement for municipalities, university, and hit some of our vulnerable populations – homelessness and some of our seniors,” said Dunleavy.

But he says aggressive action had to be taken. Without it, Alaska would be in difficult financial straits.

“We would have gone through our savings this year. We’d have no savings left and we’d be staring at some pretty stiff, draconian taxes,” said Dunleavy.

Recall supporters gathered more than 49,000 signatures but state officials rejected the premise for it. That ruling is now being challenged in court.

Listen to the full podcast to hear Gov. Dunleavy’s reaction to the recall and his analysis of why cutting spending draws such fierce opposition in both parties – whether in Alaska or in Washington.

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Sanford Ends Campaign, Fight for Fiscal Sanity Continues

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Listen to “Sanford Ends Campaign, Fight for Fiscal Sanity Continues” on Spreaker.

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford ended his Republican presidential bid this week but he is more determined than ever to warn the nation of impending financial disaster.

Sanford challenged President Trump in the GOP presidential primary knowing full well his odds of winning were very low.  But he launched the bid anyway, seeing it as an opportunity to highlight the fiscal cliff our nation seems determined to fly off of.

So why is Sanford ending the campaign?

“All the oxygen was being sucked out of the room by impeachment, said Sanford, in an interview Radio America’s Greg Corombos.  “I’m not into wasting my time or anybody else’s.  It was a long shot.”

But Sanford still plans to play a leading role in getting America to pay attention to the nation’s debt and spending problems.  It comes at a time when the U.S. is running deficits nearing a trillion dollars under a Republican president.  Most Democrats running for president would greatly expand the role of government and the amount of money to be spent.

And don’t even get him started on plans for government-run health care.

“It’s financial insanity.  This is why I thought it was so important to try to raise my hand and say, ‘I can’t do this. I know I’m not going to become president but can we at least have a conversation about the fact that we’re literally walking off the plank financially?'” said Sanford.

Listen to the full podcast to hear Sanford explain what awaits younger generations if Washington doesn’t chart a different course, what approach is doable and would actually work, and what it will take for lawmakers to take the tough votes to rein in spending.

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Tracking Your Tax Dollars

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Over the first ten months of Fiscal Year 2019, the United States is running it’s largest deficit in history. Fiscal restraint was laughed out of Washington by both parties a long time ago, but what exactly is happening with your tax dollars?

OpentheBooks.com recently studied where nearly $170 billion from the Small Business Administration went over a five-year span.

In this podcast, OpentheBooks CEO Adam Andrzejewski details the questionable recipients of much of this money and how little of it went to mom and pop business owners struggling to survive.  But he also discusses one way in which the federal government is starting to crack down on spending.

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New Budget Deal Means Even More Debt

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Eager to avoid a debt ceiling showdown, the Treasury Department and congressional Democrats appear to be on the brink of a budget agreement that could saddle taxpayers with an additional $2 trillion in debt over the next decade.

According to reports, the agreement runs through July 31, 2021.  It would effectively end all remaining elements of the 2011 Budget Control Act known as sequester, while adding $350 billion in new spending in exchange for about $75 billion in offsets.

If that seems lopsided in favor of more spending, that’s because it is.  But National Taxpayers Union President Pete Sepp says it’s even worse than it looks.

“The things is there are ripple effects past two years.  If you do a decade-long total, you’re talking about something closer to $2 trillion of additional spending permitted by this deal,” said Sepp.

Sepp also points out that a lot of new spending never goes away.

“Many of the spending increases called for will be baked into future budgets going down the line even if they try to re-establish the debt ceiling a couple of years from now.  So this is a real problem for taxpayers and, unfortunately, it represents the final retreat from the Budget Control Act of 2011, which established that sequester process,” said Sepp.

National Taxpayers Union research shows the sequester process saved the average American household roughly $7,400 by 2017.  Sepp says removing those restraints is nothing more than a massive tax hike on future generations and the future is coming sooner than wee realize.

“Deficit spending is really just tax increases on a future type of taxpayer: unborn taxpayers, or young taxpayers, even taxpayers who are currently filing their taxes down the line would face higher taxes to service all of these debts,” said Sepp.

Listen to the full podcast to hear Sepp respond to suggestions that sequestration cuts were “mindless and irresponsible.”  He also explains why spending “offsets” are often a mirage, why the Trump administration isn’t demanding more fiscal restraint, and why so few people seem to care about the mounting debt.

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Dems, Many GOP Reject Spending Cut Plan

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The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly rejected Sen. Rand Paul’s plan to cut spending by two percent per year over five years, with all Democrats present opposing the plan and a majority of Republicans in the chamber voting against it.

Early in the week, the Senate defeated a procedural motion on the so-called Pennies Plan, 69-22.  All 43 Democrats present in the chamber opposed the plan.  Among Republicans, 26 voted against the bill while 22 supported it.  The plan would make an exception for Social Security expenditures.  It also calls for making the Trump tax cuts permanent and expanding access to Health Savings Accounts.

OpentheBooks.com CEO Adam Andrzejewski is dismayed that a Republican-controlled Senate could not advance the Paul legislation, noting that cutting two cents on the dollar is far more modest than the five cents per dollar that President Trump advocates.

Andrzejewski says every penny that the government spends has a constituency and supportive lawmakers who will fight vigorously to save it.  But with the nation now more than $22 trillion in debt, the current pace of deficit spending cannot be sustained, especially with the bankruptcy of Medicare and Social Security inching ever closer.

So where could we actually start to cut costs?

“Grant making in the federal agencies amounts to over $600 billion and it’s a target-rich environment.  To put that amount of money in perspective, that’s nearly as much money at the Department of Defense on our military budget every single year,” said Andrzejewski.

And while some grants are vital, Andrzejewski says millions are wasted on frivolous projects like one million dollars to Cornell University to find out where it hurts most to get stung by a bee or another million for NASA to address religious concerns if we discover extra-terrestrial life.

Listen to the full podcast to hear more of Andrzejewski’s ideas for addressing bloated spending, including how much can be saved in Medicare and Social Security just by keeping track of who is dead.

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One Way the Government Wastes $100 Billion

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The national debt just eclipsed $22 trillion, so wasting $100 billion per year seems small in comparison, but a government watchdog says federal agencies are wasting huge sums of money to ensure they keep getting even more.

It’s called “use it or lose it” spending.  Agencies get a certain amount of money allotted each year in federal spending, and as the fiscal year draws to a close, the spending tends to ramp up dramatically.

“The federal agency heads spend down their budgets this year so they get the same or more money appropriated by Congress for the next year,” said Adam Andrzejewski, founder and CEO at openthebooks.com.

In September 2018 alone, Andrzejewski reports that federal agencies shelled out nearly $100 billion.  Twenty percent of of the annual budget went towards this spending.

“In the last week, federal agencies spent $53 billion on contracts.  This was roughly one out of every ten dollars spent on the year was spent on this last week,” said Andrzejewski.

Listen to the full podcast as Andrzejewski offers examples of how that taxpayer money was spent at the end of the year and what he thinks of President Trump’s budget blueprint that calls for a five percent spending cut in Fiscal Year 2020.

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Both Parties Ignoring Massive Debt & Waste

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President Trump never mentioned the national debt, the federal deficit. or wasteful spending in his State of the Union message, and Democrats also dodged the issues in their response.  A leading fiscal watchdog says that was a big mistake.

“I really think the president missed an opportunity here to take his own party to task on spending,” said Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and Founder of OpentheBooks.com.

Andrzejewski joined dozens of other conservative allies in taking out an ad in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, imploring Trump to address the issue.  The letter included many former lawmakers and public officials, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III.

The base of his party wants the president to hone the budget.  They want him to go after waste, fraud, corruption, and abuse,” said Andrzejewski.

Trump is hamstrung on the issue in multiple ways:  He refuses to reform entitlements and Democrats now control the U.S. House of Representatives.  Andrzejewski says the president is also facing stiff resistance within his own administration to his call for five percent spending cuts.

“We hear that the cabinet secretaries aren’t serious about the five percent cuts.  That’s the purpose of coming back to this topic to encourage the president to really make this a signature part of his administration,” said Andrzejewski.

Andrzejewski says Trump could also pressure Congress to cut way back on the $600 billion spent every year on grants.  Those grants include $1.4 to teach sex education to California prostitutes, and nearly a million dollars each for Cornell University to study where it hurts most to get stung by a bee and Harvard to breed pugilistic mice.

He also says taxpayers lost $136 billion on mistaken payments and that the average pay and benefits for a federal bureaucrat now exceeds $100,000.

Listen to the full podcast to hear Andrzejewski explain other bad habits in Washington that cost us money and how citizens must be the ones to demand better.

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GOP Congress: The Fiscal Hits and Misses

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On Thursday, a new Congress will begins with Democrats controlling the House and Republicans enjoying a bigger majority in the Senate.

So how did the GOP do in the outgoing Congress? What did they get right on tax and other fiscal policy? What did they leave undone? And what issues could be grounds for bipartisan action in a divided Congress?

National Taxpayers Union President Pete Sepp explains why the tax reform bill accomplished a lot more than lower taxes and why Republicans failed to finish the job on that legislation.

Listen to the full podcast to hear Sepp detail how the new Congress may work together to address the most oppressive parts of Obamacare and why he doesn’t expect a big push for “Medicare for all.” He also reveals whether Congress will ever get serious about spending restraint.

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French Tax Revolt, Really Lame Duck Congress, Slate vs. Sully

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Listen to “French Tax Revolt, Really Lame Duck Congress, Slate vs. Sully” on Spreaker.

Daniel Foster of National Review Online and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer the French people for forcing their government to suspend implementation of new fuel taxes, although their tactics leave a lot to be desired.  They also shake their heads as Congress punts any tough spending decisions to Dec. 21 and appears unwilling to do much of anything to rein in spending.  And the liberal site Slate draws an avalanche of condemnation for trashing the late Pres. Bush’s service dog, suggesting there should be no sentimental reaction to the dog since Bush only had him since June.

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GOP Pushes Tax Cut Bill, Punts on Spending

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House Republicans approved a tax cut bill that faces a bleak future in the Senate and both chamber pushed off any real debate on spending until December in order to avert a government shutdown.

On Friday, the House approved what Republicans call Tax Cut 2.0, the centerpiece of which is to make the individual tax cuts permanent from last year’s tax cut legislation.  At the same time, the House approved a temporary spending bill of more than $700 billion to cover government operations until December 7.

Spending remains largely at the same levels established in February when Republicans beefed up military spending and Democrats got their way on discretionary spending.  President Trump did get $1.6 billion for his border wall but that’s just a fraction of what he wanted.

On taxes, making those cuts permanent for families won’t have the same impact as the corporate tax reductions, but experts still believe families will appreciate the certainty of stable rates.

“That changes a lot of calculations as you’re budgeting for the future as an individual of what those tax rates are going to be.  As we know from previous experiences with temporary tax cuts like the Bush tax cuts, you don’t change your spending habits or your savings habits as much as you would had those tax cuts been permanent,” said Vance Ginn, senior economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

However, on spending, Ginn gives Congress a thumbs down.

“We must get control of spending.  As Reagan used to say, wee don’t have a revenue problem.  We have a spending problem.  I think that’s the same situation here,” said Ginn.

“Passing a bill that’s just going to punt the ball for a couple more months down the road and then have to go through this again, is not an appropriate form of budgeting,” said Ginn.

This year alone, the U.S. is piling up $800 billion in deficits, which in turn grows our massive debt.

“If you have a debt to (Gross Domestic Product) ratio, meaning debt as a measure of economic activity above 80 percent, you have slower economic growth.  We are currently above 100 percent of debt to GDP.

“That is telling me that we are having slower economic growth than we otherwise would have even as the economy looks to be doing pretty well right now.  Just think about how much more growth and prosperity we could have overall,” said Ginn.

Listen here for the full conversation, including Ginn’s suggestions for reining in federal spending.

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