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Jewish World Review December 21, 2012/ 8 Teves, 5773 How sad that nearly every Democrat and too many Republicans cannot grasp a concept self-evident even to a Cuban Communist By Deroy Murdock
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Raul Castro is right.
The powerful brother of dictator Fidel Castro is almost always wrong. But he was perfectly right when he told comrades in Camaguey, Cuba: "No country has the luxury of spending more than it has."
Even now, as America slouches toward the fiscal cliff, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and leading Republicans seem ho-hum about limiting federal expenditures and restraining a government gone crazy. President Barack Obama and top Democrats are downright allergic to these concepts. Too bad this Cuban tyrant's rare words of wisdom escape Washington's spendaholics.
First, the Mack Penny Plan, created by outgoing Congressman Connie Mack, R-Fla., would cut a penny from each dollar that Uncle Sam spends each year, for eight years. In 2013, Congress would spend 99 cents per dollar disbursed today; in 2014, 98 cents, etc. Rather than consume 24.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product today, federal spending in 2020 would be capped at 18 percent, just below the 18.2 percent at which Bill Clinton left it.
Such steady reductions, spanning nearly a decade, finally would lasso the spending monster. Washington policymakers should be able to prioritize and reallocate funding within a predictable, slowly decreasing budget.
Second, Washington should terminate antiquated and extraneous programs.
Third, between December 2008 and December 2011, Washington-based executive-branch civilian employees grew from 345,326 to 368,706. This 6.8 percent expansion across Obama's first three years is ripe for reduction, especially considering the size of these feds' paychecks. According to Bureau of Economic Analysis data analyzed by the libertarian Cato Institute's Chris Edwards, federal civilian employees in 2011 averaged $128,226 in total compensation ($84,671 in wages and $43,555 in benefits).
Private-sector workers, meanwhile, earned half of that: $64,560 ($53,463 in wages and $11,099 in benefits). Even worse, 825 directors at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last year got paid at least $205,330.
"The federal workforce has become an elite island of secure and high-paid workers, separated from the ocean of average American workers competing in the global economy," Edwards commented. "Federal wages should be frozen or cut, overly generous federal benefits should be overhauled, and the federal workforce downsized through program terminations and privatization."
If Washington will not stop hiking spending, spending hikes will stop Washington. How sad that nearly every Democrat and too many Republicans cannot grasp a concept self-evident even to a Cuban Communist.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Comment by clicking here. Deroy Murdock is a columnist with Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.
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