As an original cosponsor of the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011, I applaud our Republican leadership for bringing this urgent legislation to the House floor next week. This bill invokes a three step process to solve our national debt crisis. First, it cuts spending by $111 billion in Fiscal Year 2012, including $76 billion in non-security discretionary spending cuts. Second, it caps federal spending levels for this fiscal year and the next 10 years, which ensures that our government cannot spend beyond its means. And finally, it forces the federal government to balance its ledger by requiring a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution before Congress can authorize any debt limit increase.
It’s time for us to slam the brakes on President Obama’s profligate spending and rescue our country from financial ruin. I look forward to casting a resounding yes vote next week for the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011.
For more information, please visit the Republican Study Committee’s Website, here.
Hold the line! The Gang of Six proposal is a NO. Tell your other Republicans that hard working two income families will be hit very hard with the proposed removal of home mortgage interest deductions and charitable giving will suffer enormously, especially since the federal government is not helping as much as it used to. A $500,000 house in Houston is not owned by “milionaires and billionaires”, Mr. Obama. I will work as much as it takes to elect anyone who will stand up against Obama and this proposal. Stop giving in, Republicans!
President Reagan wrote this to then Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker in 1983:
“‘The full consequences of a default,’ he said, ‘or even the serious prospect of a default by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The nation can ill afford to allow such a result.’
For once Congressman Culberson, demonstrate some flexibility and leadership.
Congressman Culberson
Greetings from Texas.
First, I applaud your efforts in many areas. Truly. I believe you are one of the good guys.
That said, I do NOT believe the BBA portion of this strategy is in the best interests of our nation or our posterity in the short or long term as it ignores the root problem and in fact, institutionalizes it, fundamentally changing America for the worse.
First, the problem is not simply spending, it is lawless, unconstitutional spending. The goal must be more than controlling spending, but returning spending to that authorized by the Constitution..or we might as well officially be done with it.
The fundamental budgetary problem is that Congress is lawlessly disregarding the bounds put on it by the Constitution–the enumerated powers. It is in fact overspending on things it should be spending NOTHING on at all. Is it doing this because there is no BBA to stop it? Hardly.
Would a BBA suddenly stop already unconstitutional activity? Hardly. When one is of a mind not to be bound by it at all, one part of the Constitution is as easy to ignore as another.
Be no deceived…those who scoff at and disregard the Constitution will not suddenly become originalists simply because a BBA was passed. It will do NOTHING to stop the lawless–only you can do that. A BBA can and does, however, legitimize the usurpation by allocating to it, at least initially, a percentage of the GDP, when it should be ZERO.
THAT is the fundamental change offered in the BBA, and it is in no uncertain terms, a bargain with the devil.
This is analogous to nothing less than a burglar seeking, at the suggestion of a law enforcement officer, to strike a grand bargain with a home owner…”Lets compromise—I’ll take the TV instead of the TV and the Silverware…and the guest bedroom is mine. That’s fair.”
Further, the BBA removes from the People and their House the ultimate power of the purse and puts it, in the unelected Courts. This is why such scholars as Robert Bork calls the BBA a conservative bromide.
Sir, with all due respect, there is no fundamental problem with the Constitution as a proposed BBA implies. The problem is usurpation and lawlessness of the Supreme Law of the land, right here and right now, and in front of those whose duty it is to protect it and us. Those you do not need a BBA to be handled.
If Congress wanted to obey the Constitution and return to its enumerated powers, it could do so NOW…right now! It does not need an amendment to do so. Yet, it does not, and that is already the law. It remains lawless.
If Congress wanted to stop the outrageous spending, it could…the HOUSE controls the budget, and the people have entrusted the GOP with control that House, demanding that the Constitution be complied with. Yet, it is not.
I say again, the problem is not spending…but lawless and dishonest spending. Quite a different thing. I have seen no proposals to deal with that.
‘Tis time for deciding if we will be a nation where honest men and women would want to live and raise their families…and to do that requires controlling the rogues and lawless loosed upon us.
God bless
“Where the principle of difference [between political parties] is as substantial and as strongly pronounced as between the republicans and the monocrats of our country, I hold it as honorable to take a firm and decided part and as immoral to pursue a middle line, as between the parties of honest men and rogues, into which every country is divided.” –Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795. ME 9:317
John, Thanks for your note on this legislation. Unfortunately, this bill has no chance the Senate and the President will approve. With that said, I am getting increasingly frustrated with both parties and their inability to reach a compromise on spending and the debt limit. In my 33+ years as an executive in the oil industry there is no hidden meaning to the word “compromise”. I cannot understand why educated men and women cannot get off their high platforms and make the right decisions. Everyone seems to be talking too much in generalities with no specifics. Now I am hearing that details cannot be worked out prior to 8/2 because there is not enough time. This is utterly ridiculous and absurd. Do you think the average American is stupid enough to believe this? When did the deficit problem become apparent? In industry, you would get fired if you could not solve a well known problem before it occurred.
Specifically, I want to know what you are doing to “compromise” and agree on a meaningful solution. My retirement investments are at risk while you and your cohorts play with fire. I also want to mention this is the first time I have ever written you which shows my frustration level with Washington and it’s ineffectiveness
Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this.
It is time for Republicans to show they can truly compromise and get back to work on a budget. This is nonsense. Anyone else who refused to budge on an issue of importance to an organization in which reasonable educated people differ in opinion would be fired. As one of the Americans who would have their taxes raised, I say raise taxes. My kids are going to have to shoulder this burden if I don’t. Don’t keep blaming Obama and the Democrats for what the Republicans and the Bush tax freeze has done to our country. Take responsibility for cleaning up the mess, and raise taxes, even just a little. Clean up the tax code. Spend on the social safety net – Texas has more uninsured children than any state in the nation. Republicans need to stop acting like children, and stop refusing to negotiate.
Way to go…..keep up the great work…..also please continue the fight to repeal Obamacare…
John:
I support the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011
I also agree with Sen. Tom Coburn statements yesteday that the McConnell plan is more of concress and the administarion not taking responsibility. It ss a political plan and simply takes the pressure off the politicians, and allows you all to pass a debt limit without making the hard choices that this country has to make
Since the Administarion and the Sec or Treasury cannot execute their responsibilities, I think it would be good to have legislative insturcitons to the Executive branch that details what they should spend money on in the event that the CCB is not passed by the Senate or vetoed by Obama.
Dear Rep Culberson:
Please introduce legislation to:
1) Roll back all spending to FY 2007 levels as that is the last year of partial sanity, ie pre Pelosi.
2) Make all federal budgets zero baseline; no more automatic increases
3) Return any and all unspent “stimulus” moneys to the treasury
After the above, why not start cutting from that point and start with the agencies that are counter productive or simply worthless, like the helium reserve. We have gone way past the point to where these types of expenditures can be tolerated. The total size of the federal government needs to be cut by about 40%. The total number of federal employees needs to be cut by at least 40%. Just to be sure that we are on the same page, by cut I mean a reduction in what the current levels are now, I am NOT speaking of a reduction in the rate of growth. THERE MUST BE “NEGATIVE GROWTH” in the federal govt if we are to survive as a nation.
Wouldn’t it help if you helped reform entitlement spending? While you’re co-sponsoring budget-curtailing bills, why not also co-sponsor H.R. 2109 for your constituents here in your electoral district of Harris County? It’s the “Savings Account for Every American Act” bill that would finally allow us to make our social security contributions to private accounts instead of the increasingly bankrupt social security federal government Ponzi Scheme that Obama basically just admitted has nothing left in it from prior contributors. Just as our elected officials don’t have to depend on the government-run social security program, why should those of us who pay your salaries still have to? The unfunded liabilities continue to accumulate, as http://www.USDebtClock.org documents.
We don’t allow private sector Ponzi schemes to exist, as Bernie Madoff can confirm from prison. So isn’t it time to curtail the hypocrisy involved with the federal government’s nevertheless running social security by letting us save for our own retirements, using the efficiency and accountability of the competitive private sector to help with our futures? If even that solution is supposedly insufficiently reliable, why not let us opt out of social security altogether? Indeed I prefer to be able to opt-out of social security because I believe I could accomplish far more with my savings if I could invest them as I see fit (and I’d accept the risk in case I achieve disappointing results). Still, my finally being allowed to make such contributions into a private savings account as H.R. 2109 would allow is a step in the right direction. So why aren’t you sponsoring it, Congressman Culberson? Too afraid to risk annoying retired constituents just to free us taxation slaves who actually contribute to Houston’s economy beyond ways involving merely spending other people’s money?
Those who lazily claim to be “entitled” to their relatively exorbitant social security benefits did little if anything to keep any contributions that they might have made sufficiently guarded from congressional fiscal irresponsibility. How is it not slavery to force current taxpayers to keep cleaning up after them by paying into a program that even they couldn’t protect before the proverbial horse was stolen from the barn? Current recipients sat by idly, but why should that become my responsibility when I couldn’t even vote while they let their elected officials squander what little (if anything) that they contributed? This exposé documents how little most of them actually contributed, too:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=195217
What stops seniors from getting a job, as sites such as http://www.RetiredBrains.com facilitate for older people? If retirees still claim that they can’t be productive members of society despite how it’s easier than ever thanks to telecommunications breakthroughs, how are such lethargy and parasitism something worth subsidizing with my own involuntarily extracted earnings which could instead be used to create jobs for those who remain viable as potential contributors to society?
The social security status quo is already unfair to younger people… Social security involves a transfer of wealth from the young to the old or relatively unproductive. Worse still, there has been talk of “solutions” such as means-testing social security benefits, while also raising the retirement age even further. Such “solutions” are likely inevitable, but are unsatisfactory and fall way short of what we’re promised when coercively forced to pay into the government social security fund in order to finance present retirees’ living off of our sweat, hard work and innovativeness. Might you still remember where such a political philosophy got the U.S.S.R. two decades ago?
As your constituent, I notice that you’re not co-sponsoring H.R. 2109. Why is that, Congressman Culberson? Why should we vote for a slave driver or passive “good German” in the future? Stress causes cancer and heart disease, and my having to subsidize the unproductive when I need that money adversely affects my health. So what is your position specifically regarding H.R. 2109, por favor? Please don’t waste our time merely with some “I want to fortify social security and I thank you for sharing your thoughts regarding that important cause” “reply”. Your job is to make challenging decisions, as http://www.USDebtClock.org warrants. For your potential competitors, the choice is easy. How about for you?
What is this “Don’t make me call my bluff” coming from the President of the United States? He’s treating the economic crises, which he created, like a poker game. As if he’s hiding a card up his sleeve from the American people. This man is an insult to our country. What were people thinking when they voted for him?