The mythical lands known as Balanced Budget

Looking tonight at the website of Minnesota CD5 candidate, Tammy Lee, with the Indepencence Party, on balancing the budget.

Found
http://www.tammyleeforcongress.com/issues.asp
Tammy Lee for Congress: Spend Less, Get Better Government

Because Tammy Lee is committed to balancing the budget and eliminating the federal debt, that means she is also committed to not over-promising or over-spending in other areas. Other politicians will make big promises just to get elected. Tammy Lee will take a much more fiscally responsible approach and use our federal resources prudently. This includes responsible investments to create a better world for our children:

• Fund the Federal Government's Fair Share of Public Education
• Improve Access to Healthcare and Cut Costs
• Invest Big Oil's $6 billion tax breaks into Renewable Energy

That looks like about it. She promises not to promise anything new I guess. Probably is we're deficit spending like $400B/year. She says "Spend less", but nothing about how or where. I guess it means we ought "expect less" from our government. Will she be voting to undo the senior drug prescription entitlement as unaffordable? Will she be voting to stop borrowing against social security surpluses? Will she be voting to downscale the military? Less "pork" in our backyard? Exactly WHICH programs will she be cutting?

She talks about "investing" and I like that approach - judging spending based on future value. Such a perspective allows analysis of borrowing now, and paying later. If an expense will benefit us for 50 years, perhaps it is worth a 50 year debt. But what if we're can even afford our annual 5% debt payment now? What if we can't afford it in 10 years? It had better be a fundamental expense to take the risk.

I ask myself what I WOULD DO, to balance the budget. Obviously in the early 1990's bills were passed to control spending, AND raise taxes. Whether through luck or good planning the economy thrived enough to reduce the deficit, even if we were still "stealing" from the SS fund.

The republicans like to say that the democrats love to spend "Our money", and say they want to give it back for the people to spend. Well, apparently SS isn't "our money" since the government happily spends it with no regards to the future at all.

I'm willing to contemplate the idea of borrowing from the SS fund on investments in the future, but it's a tricky thing, to try to judge cost-benefit, while all the benefit is NOW, and all the cost is deferred. It is easy to skip the analysis and have a party!

What would I do?

1. Acknowledge that borrowing is a gamble that our investments will exceed in value the debts we are leaving our descendants.
2. Acknowledge the U.S. has lost control of our own destiny as long as are unable to produce our own sources of energy and have to borrow from foreigners to pay for our debt.
3. Acknowledge that the future will be HARDER than the present until we learn to use less and rebuild our economy so that waste is considered waste and not GNP growth.

Then what?

Transportation ( Highest dependency upon oil imports)

• Set a goal to reduce our oil consumption to half current levels over the next 10 years. Charge a 50% "tax" on all oil produced and imported.
• Redesign the national transportation system on the assumption that it will one day have to run on 1/4 as much energy as we now spend.

Defense

• Set a goal to align our defensive needs as a common interest among other countries and reduce our military spending to no more than 4 times our average ally per-capita spending.
• Set a goal to dismantle all nuclear weapons (because it is the right thing to do AND because the world is a safer place.)
• Develop a "peace force" branch of the military which will be trained in nonviolent techniques of ending violence.

... Time constraints hit... more later?