Getting Real About the Federal Budget

Two votes in the U.S. Senate this week sent a message to last November’s voters that Congress is starting to get it -- that Washington can’t continue to spend money it doesn’t have, at the expense of future generations.

On Wednesday, senators passed what’s called a continuing resolution to keep the government open and funded through March 18 while reducing federal spending by $4 billion from current levels.

Also that day, senators voted on legislation expressing the sense of the Senate that Congress should pass, and the states agree to, a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget.  This initiative won the support of 58 senators, including 10 Democratic senators, but fell short of the 60 votes required for passage.

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed $61 billion in spending reductions.  Now it’s up to the Senate to pass legislation.  There are no more excuses.  Some in Congress have argued that the cuts are too much, too soon.  Yet, the $61 billion in cuts is coming from programs that saw a 24 percent increase from 2008 to 2010.  And, $61 billion is just one-twenty-fifth of this year’s $1.5 trillion federal deficit.

Right now, the federal government is collecting $2.2 trillion a year and spending $3.7 trillion a year.  That means for every dollar spent, we’re borrowing 40 cents.  Congress and the President need to do more than nibble around the edges to make sure we’re “living within our means,” as President Obama has said he wants to do.  We’ve got a long way to go.

Within the last 24 hours, the Majority Leader of the Senate unveiled a spending plan for the remainder of this fiscal year, and it includes a mere $6 billion in spending cuts.  What’s worse, the Democratic leader is trying to claim that it reduces spending by $51 billion.  That’s a stretch, and it’s based on those reductions being made from the level of spending proposed by the President for this fiscal year.  That level was never acted upon because of a lack of support in Congress.  The simple truth is that the Democratic leader would reduce spending by just $6 billion from today’s level of government spending.

Instead of this kind of posturing, Americans need Senate Democratic leaders and the President to get real about the federal budget and get to work for meaningful fiscal discipline in Washington.