Budget & Spending
Analysis:
- Federal spending grew from 18% of gross domestic product (GDP) to 24% of GDP between 2001 and 2011.
- "For every $1 spent on a government program, the required taxes cause about $1.50 of damage to the private economy." Stanford University's Michael Boskin calls it a "leaky bucket."
- Entitlement programs made up $1.6 trillion of the $3.6 trillion federal budget in 2011.
- The Department of Defense (DOD) will spend about $721 billion in fiscal 2011, of which $159 billion will be for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- "For the first time since the Great Depression, households are receiving more income from the government than they are paying the government in taxes." In 2010, households received $2.3 trillion in income support from entitlements, welfare, and other government cash transfers. They paid in $2.2 trillion.
- The Tenth Amendment reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." James Madison called the federal government's powers "few and defined."
- Cut subsidies, reducing the "leaky bucket" effect, and allowing market forces to determine what is most valuable to our society.
- Allow competition with federal entitlement programs to shrink their burden on the federal budget.
- Pass the 19 DOD reforms proposed by Benjamin H. Friedman and Christopher Preble of the Cato Institute in November 2010.
- Decriminalize drug-related activity and other "crimes" that constitutionally should be managed at the state level, rather than by federal enforcement.
Analysis:
- Congressmen regularly vote to pass bills without reading the text.
- Congress has passed bills without allowing time for feedback from Constituents.
- Congress regularly legislates a variety of laws in the same bill.
- Congress has given "legislative power" to bureaucrats.
- Congress rarely, if ever, debates the Constitutionality of bills.
- Passage of the Read the Bills Act, which requires ALL bills be read before the full House and Senate and be posted online for 7 days before coming to a vote.
- Passage of the One Subject at a Time Act, which requires ALL bills deal with one specific subject and be given a title that fits the subject.
- Passage of the Write the Laws Act, which requires Congress to make laws and removes "legislative power" from government agencies.
- Passage of the Enumerated Powers Act, which requires each bill to list the Constitutional authorization for passage of such bill.
Monetary Policy
Analysis:
- The currency of the United States of America is fiat and not commodity based.
- The legal tender law forces the use of a fiat currency.
- Article 1 Section 10 of the US Constitution states "No State shall...make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts."
- Fiat currency is the primary cause of inflation.
- Passage of the Honest Money Act, which would repeal legal tender law.
- Passage of the Free Competition of Currency Act, which would repeal the government monopoly over the creation of coins for use as currency.
- Passage of the Tax-Free Gold Act, which would prohibit federal and state taxes on precious metal coins and bullion.
Analysis:
- Social security is by definition a Ponzi Scheme: "a fraudulent investment plan in which the investments of later investors are used to pay earlier investors, giving the appearancethat the investments of the initialparticipants dramatically increase in value in a short amount of time."
