Time for spending restraint
November 2, 2006| By Nathaniel Ward
“[E]ven as tax rates were coming down,” Heritage President Ed Feulner writes in The Chicago Sun-Times¸ “federal spending kept going up. This is the real fiscal problem facing America, not the deficit (which merely measures the share of government financed by borrowing rather than taxes).”
Feulner points to a new government report that makes a strong case for fiscal restraint. “It predicts we will be able to make the tax cuts permanent, grow the economy and shrink the deficit—if we’re willing to hold the line on spending.”
It’s “critical” that we cut back on spending, he writes. “That helps balance the budget in the short run, and it reduces government interference in the economy in the long run.”
In the last year alone, Feulner explains, federal spending jumped by 7.4 percent to $2.65 trillion. And since 2001, Heritage economist Brian Riedl reported in July, “federal spending has leaped 45 percent. Defense and homeland security account for less than one-third of this increase.”
In September, Heritage’s Dan Mitchell and Michelle Muccio pointed out how costly this increase in the size of government has been, as government spending has soared past 20 percent of the country’s economic output. If spending had grown as slowly since 2001 as it did during the Clinton administration, government spending would today account for less than 17 percent of the economy—a decrease in the relative size of government compared to 2001. What’s more, they argue, “this degree of fiscal discipline would have produced a $184 billion surplus.”
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
