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You are here: Home / Politics / Family Budget Protection Act

Family Budget Protection Act

by John Cole|  May 13, 200512:00 pm| 5 Comments

This post is in: Politics

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Since I so frequently bash their vicious homophobia and divisive politics, let me now take the opportunity to applaud the sentiments expressed by Focus on the Family in their latest bit of advocacy (via Red State):

Congress is feeling the heat from families fed up with spiraling government spending. But a plan to bring sense to the process is in the offing.

A lot of families think the U.S. budget is out of control and getting worse in a hurry. The Family Budget Protection Act, first introduced in 2004, is now being promoted as a solution.

The bill would simplify the budget by breaking it into five broad categories, much like families design their household budgets. It would put a lid on spending, while doing away with old programs just taking up space. And it would tie entitlement spending to inflation and population growth.

Federal spending in this year’s recently passed budget is more than $2.6 trillion.

A group of fiscal conservatives wants to do something about it. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, for one, said taxpayers are fed up.

“They do not believe Congress has done a good job on spending,” he said.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said it’s time to redesign the budget system.

The problem is, I am not sure this is such a good idea. While I recognize that the spending in Washington is simply out of control, this is yet another bit of ‘evasive delegation’ I talked about earlier (this being self-referential schumck day at Balloon Juice).

There are times when we need the ability to quickly spend more money, times when we need to run a deficit, and times when we need to inject money into the economy, and right now I am not sure if this legislation will allow for such emergencies. And then you run into the problem of what defines an emergency, because as soon as you pass this bill amended with emergency provisions, everything will become an emergency, and the nill will then become meaningless. Just look at how they completely ignored the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act and the later Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (the quid pro quo for Bush 1’s ‘read my lips’ reversal), which were supposed to save the world.

What we need is not more legislation. We need fiscal restraint. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just elect people who could construct a sensible national budget?

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Reader Interactions

5Comments

  1. 1.

    Jon H

    May 13, 2005 at 12:14 pm

    “Family Budget Protection Act”?

    From a Congress that refused to cap credit card rates, probably the greatest threat to family budgets?

    Pull the other one, it has got bells on.

  2. 2.

    neil

    May 13, 2005 at 1:06 pm

    Something tells me that FOTF’s idea of a ‘family budget’ contains a lot more tax breaks for millionaires than my family’s budget does.

  3. 3.

    Rightwingsparkle

    May 14, 2005 at 1:50 pm

    Ugh. Just buying the left’s view of FOTF. They are hardly vicious. And if divisive politics means standing up for what you believe in then …yeah… they are that. But then so is everyone interested in this political world we live in.

  4. 4.

    Rick

    May 14, 2005 at 4:05 pm

    RWS,

    Yeah, but if you’re both conservative, and a person of faith, well…*that’s just WRONG.*

    Keep watching this blog, and you’ll see the point over and over, from host and guests.

    Cordially…

  5. 5.

    sojourner

    May 15, 2005 at 10:33 pm

    My sincere thanks fot FOTF for proving once again how gullible people are. Apparently the FOTF supporters are too ignorant to realize how badly they’re getting raped by the tax cuts for the wealthy. Instead, FOTF will likely succeed at diverting their attention to more cuts for the poor, in that decidedly Christian fashion we’ve become familiar with from that ultimate Christian, Bush. But the people will buy it. Besides, suffering brings them closer to god.

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