US Faces Fiscal Armageddon, and We Propose a One-Half of One Percent Solution
"The U.S. economy made a spectacular comeback in 2017. But the country still faces the prospect of fiscal Armageddon if we don't cut spending and check the out-of-control National Debt," says Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC].
Weber says that the annual budgets of all departments and agencies of the federal government need to share the burden of cuts except for Social Security and Medicare. "They are riddled with so much fraud that we could save as much as $60 billion a year if the fed makes a concerted effort to root out the malfeasance."
The AMAC chief is calling for "a new, and perhaps more palatable, version of what has been called 'The Penny Plan' that would cut federal spending by one percent across the board. Instead of the one percent solution, we could reduce federal budgets by as little as one-half of one percent and still meet the ultimate goal of reducing spending sufficiently to achieve a balanced budget while tackling the debt."
Weber notes that if we put such a plan into place this year with the Executive Branch departments and agencies simply cutting back on spending — not spending all of their appropriations — the cumulative impact of such a plan would put us back on the road to long-term prosperity."
How important is it that we get a handle on deficit spending and the National Debt sooner than later? The non-partisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation, whose focus is on the economic challenges our country faces, recently reported that "net interest costs [on the National Debt] will triple over the next 10 years, soaring from $269 billion in 2017 to $818 billion in 2027 and totaling $5.6 trillion over the period."
In fact, the nation's debt is fast approaching $20 trillion and the fed estimates that if we don't do something about it the debt will grow at a rate of $1 trillion a year for the next ten years.
Says Weber: "that is unacceptable. Doing nothing is not an option. We cannot allow the richest nation on the planet to join the ranks of the world's most needy nations. We owe it to our children and grandchildren not to leave them with a burdensome debt that they can ill-afford. Everett Dirksen was a Republican Senator from Illinois and to paraphrase his famous quote: A Trillion here, a Trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.' Of course, Dirksen actually said 'a billion here, a billion there.' I've updated it because in his day, a billion dollars with a "B" was considered a lot of money. Today, too many do-gooders in Washington think it's chump change, as they say."
