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Paul Ryan’s Ax Isn’t Sharp Enough


Sam Island

By PAUL C. BROUN Jr.
Published: March 18, 2013

Washington

THE latest budget proposal by Representative Paul D. Ryan, called “The Path to Prosperity,” is anything but. It fails to seriously address runaway government spending, the most pressing problem facing our nation. I cannot vote for something that would trick the American people into thinking that Congress is fixing Washington’s spending problem, when in actuality we’d just be allowing it to continue without end.

Supporters of the “Path to Prosperity,” including many of my fellow Republicans, say that we have to stop spending money we don’t have, an idea I promote every chance I get. But under the proposal by Mr. Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, the federal government would continue to spend more than it will this year.

Spending would grow by an average of 3.4 percent annually, only slightly less than the rate under President Obama’s plan, which is 5 percent a year. After 10 years — Mr. Ryan’s target for eliminating the deficit — the “Path to Prosperity” will have spent $41 trillion, when the president’s plan would allow spending of $46 trillion. My party’s de facto position has become “we’re increasing spending, but not as much as the other guy.” That’s not good enough.

Just reducing growth in spending does almost nothing. We have to dig deeper and make profound cuts now. We cannot continue to assume that future Congresses will do our dirty work for us.

We ought to get rid of certain federal departments and agencies, stopping only to shift the role of governing back to the states, where it belongs. The Departments of Education and Energy, for example, are two bloated bureaucracies that we don’t need; their core functions would be absorbed by the states through block grants, saving taxpayers at least $500 billion over the next decade.

Constitutionally speaking, the federal government should not have a role in K-12 public education anyway. Overpaid Washington bureaucrats shouldn’t be deciding how to provide for teachers and students, whose own state and local governments are better equipped to understand their needs. A Heritage Foundation study showed that in 2010, the average salary of an Education Department employee reached $103,000 — nearly double the average public-school teacher’s salary. Let’s phase out a large portion of the department’s roughly $70 billion budget. We can transfer the remaining dollars directly to the states, where they will be used more wisely.

Let’s also abolish the Energy Department, which is one of the biggest federal culprits responsible for the mismanagement of taxpayer dollars. Without unending government backing, the Energy Department would have ceased to exist long ago because of its ineffectiveness, corruption and poor investment strategy. Taxpayers are now on the hook for hundreds of millions of squandered dollars because of failed federal loans given to green companies like Solyndra and Fisker Automotive.

The only constitutionally necessary service provided by the Energy Department is regulation of the nation’s stockpile of atomic weapons, a function that can return to the Department of Defense. Eliminating this bureaucracy would be a large, permanent spending cut, and restore energy-related venture capitalism to its natural home, the private sector.

Our spending crisis is so severe that we can’t stop at these two departments — there are more areas to cut. For example, we should also phase out the federal highway financing system and allow states to keep their own gas tax receipts. States would then be free to determine their own transportation needs and explore creative funding for roads like public-private partnerships.

As a family doctor for more than 30 years, I understand that we must look for savings in our health care system too. I recently co-sponsored legislation that would convert Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program into state-managed programs through a single federal block grant. This would save approximately $2 trillion over 10 years by capping federal funding at 2012 levels for the next 10 years and giving states an incentive to seek out and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. The government agency closest to the consumer can most efficiently manage taxpayer dollars.

We’re not done. We must repeal Obamacare — including the associated taxes, which the Ryan budget leaves intact by assuming the enactment of tax reform later on. We’ll replace it with a market-based health care system devoid of government involvement and managed by patients and their doctors, a plan I have described in my Patient Option Act.

If we get government out of the way and put Medicare in patients’ hands by increasing contribution limits to health savings accounts, it will transform Medicare into a more flexible premium assistance program.

To cap all this off — literally — I have proposed a balanced-budget amendment that would force Congress to stick to the principle of not spending more than we take in. Passing a constitutional amendment is no easy task. While it’s a large undertaking, I’ll continue to fight for its passage. Just a few weeks ago, the House put enough pressure on the Senate to force it to produce a budget — something Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, hadn’t attempted in over four years. If we keep up the pressure, we’ll continue to see results.

Rather than nibbling around the edges as the Ryan proposal does, we must do all of this and much more now. There is a “Path to Prosperity,” but Mr. Ryan’s budget isn’t it. The only way to protect our nation’s financial future as well as our citizens’ liberty is to stop the outrageous spending in Washington and permanently reduce the size of our overreaching federal government.

Paul C. Broun Jr. [ http://broun.house.gov/biography/ ], a Georgia Republican, has been a United States representative [ http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=B001262 ] since 2007 and is a member of the Tea Party caucus in Congress.

© 2013 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/opinion/paul-ryans-ax-isnt-sharp-enough.html [with comments]


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Paul Broun Testimony - from Liberty's 2012 Sportsman's Banquet

Published on Oct 8, 2012 by LibertyBCofHart

Congressman Paul Broun shares his personal testimony at Liberty Baptist Church's 2012 Sportsman's Banquet.

Mike Griffin is Pastor of Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell, GA. For more information, visit us at : http://libertybc.ws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9BREymSq_A


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Rep. Paul Broun Talks about his Faith

Uploaded on Nov 11, 2007 by LeviMesner

Congressman Paul Broun (R-GA) speaks about his faith, the Christian foundation of America, and National Bible Appreciation week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUKnAaPvyNo