Fix The Debt: 6 Things That Congress Should Do As It Considers The Federal Budget & Government Spending

Source: Fix The Debt-

Source:The New Democrat 

"The Fix the Debt Campaign is bringing together Americans from all walks of life and from across the country to get the national debt under control. Learn more and join us."

What Fix The Debt really only offers here are goals that they would like to see accomplished in the next Federal budget that Congress passes and the President signs. Which may happen as soon as 2050 since Congress no longer passes budgets The the last budget that Congress passed was in 2006. What they do instead is pass some appropriations bills and generally its real just the House that passes any appropriations bills. And September comes along which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone since September is an annual event in America and Congress realizes that the Federal Government funding is about to run out and decides to pass a short-term spending bill keeping the entire government running until the end of the year generally.

It use to be better than this when Congress would pass an omnibus bill generally in December that would fund the entire government until the following September. Omnibus bills are one appropriation bill passed by Congress instead of all 13 bills and passed instead of a budget. They're not as good as a budget that comes with appropriations bills later on, but are certainly better than running a Federal Government with a four-trillion-dollar budget and without around five-million employees three or four months at a time. Better for the workers and better for the economy, because investors don't have to worry about government shutdowns as much and the negative impact they have on the economy.

The only real solution that Fix The Debt offers here and I doubt the author of this article is actually named Fix The Debt, I mean that is no name for a real human being, but no name for the author is given here, but all they talk about is Congress should pass a budget. Pass a budget that puts us on path to reducing the national deb. And then they offer only one real solution in their article which is called PAYGO. Which is a wonky eggheaded term that in American English means pay as you go.

Makes sense right, is you're going to purchase something pay for it instead of running up big credit card bills that you can't pay back or writing checks that bounce like fully pumped basketballs that are slammed on a highway. But Congress doesn't operate in the real world. They operate in the world of political bases and political contributions. And tend to see their number one job is to get reelected. Especially if they're in the leadership of the major party in the House and Senate and don't want to lose their majority during the next election. Or if they're in the leadership in the minority party they tend to see their number one job is to not only get reelected but add to their membership and win back the House or Senate.

So as long as Congress functions on short-term spending bills and the only real deadline they care about are their primary elections and election days, we'll never see any real solutions to addressing the big deficit of six-hundred-billion dollars and the national debt of twenty-trillion-dollars. Because addressing these issues will cost political capital and support. Because it will mean addressing entitlements, the defense budget, the tax code, emergency spending like disaster relief, and our public assistance anti-poverty programs so we have fewer Americans living and working in poverty and more Americans working and paying payroll and Federal income taxes.

But if you're looking for real solutions that might happen at some point in the future, or more realistically could happen in the short-term, I believe PAYGO and disaster relief reform might be the only things that could pass both the House and Senate and get signed by President Trump. Applying PAYGO to disaster relief and the defense budget. No more waiting until the hurricane season in the late summer to realize that we may need a lot of money to pay for that cleanup and help people be able to get back to their lives. With Congress passing a disaster relief package of somewhere around 50-100 billion dollars that of course is put on the national credit card. (Another way of saying national debt)

But instead showing some common sense (almost as rare as July snow in Los Angeles, in Congress) and knowing that August and September are annual events in America and are hurricane season in the Southeast, as well as the Southwest in Texas with all the heat and humidity and that this is a region that will probably get hit by at least one storm and that it could be a major storm and that this region is probably going to need a lost of assistance to handle any recovery that might be needed. And again, to go back to the need for the Federal budget that the Administration and Congress should plan for these events upfront and pay for them upfront.

We need a natural disaster fund in America that should be paid for by the people who receive that assistance when their property is hit by one of these major storms and need financial assistance in order to recover from it. People who live in higher risk areas should pay more for this insurance because they'll get more assistance when they are hit by a storm or some other natural disaster. This would save the Federal Government 20, 50, perhaps even 100 billion dollars or more each year, as well as taxpayers because the Feds would no longer have to borrow to pay for disaster relief and taxpayers would have less interest to pay back on the national debt when they make purchases.

A fully functioning PAYGO that is tied to the entire Federal budget whether its disaster relief, as well as the defense budget and increases to all parts of the Federal budget including invasions, humanitarian relief efforts that are Defense Department are involved in, repairing and building new bases, alone won't fix the deficit and the national debt. We really need a comprehensive approach here that deals with the tax code, entitlements, poverty assistance, as well as defense and disaster relief. But it would be a good step forward and tell the markets and Wall Street that the U.S. Government is finally serious about the national debt and sees it as a national priority and at the very least will stop asking to the problem that it created.
Source:Crash Course