The tipping point
December 1, 2006| By Ed Feulner
Author Malcolm Gladwell writes about the “tipping point”—the moment when an idea that has been quietly building support takes hold. Suddenly the idea has the power to change everything.
With the $315 million “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska and other needless pork projects in the news—thanks in no small part to Heritage—our federal government’s overspending seems to be reaching its tipping point.
Heritage analysis of the federal budget shows that last year Washington spent almost $22,000 per household, the highest level of spending since World War II. Meanwhile, overall spending now stands 33 percent higher than when President Bush took office.
This spending is stirring the ire of ordinary Americans. And it has inspired a broad coalition of conservative groups led by The Heritage Foundation to work together to expose the abuse of your tax dollars, bring the federal budget under control and get the facts out about why this spending is a problem and what must be done to stop it.
Heritage is working hard to refute the knee-jerk liberals who see one answer—higher taxes—as the solution to every problem. These tax-and-spend liberals want to pay the bill for unnecessary spending by revoking the Heritage-backed tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003. The liberals think you should send more of your money to Washington.
Thanks to your support, The Heritage Foundation is able to get the facts about why the liberals’ tax hikes are a bad idea. Heritage economic models predict that making the Bush tax cuts permanent would create 430,000 additional jobs in 2006—and an average of 624,000 jobs per year over the next decade. That’s tremendous growth—but it can happen only if we bring spending down.
Here’s another liberal myth Heritage is debunking: Federal spending is on the rise because of the high costs of the War on Terrorism. This simply isn’t true. Heritage research shows that from 2001 through 2003, spending rose nearly $300 billion—but a whopping 55 percent of this new spending went to projects unrelated to national security. The Heritage Foundation was among the first to sound the alarm over uncontrolled federal spending, and for years Heritage experts have documented this growing epidemic. Now—thanks to Heritage’s efforts to promote spending cuts—we’re nearing the proverbial tipping point.
Heritage has pushed excessive spending to the top of the agenda in Washington and in the national news media. With your continued support, we intend to keep it there. The fight has just begun. There are still a number of lawmakers who aren’t listening to our message and don’t recognize how vital an issue this is for their constituents.
In the face of such oblivious “leaders,” The Heritage Foundation intends to keep exposing specific examples of how your tax dollars are being wasted. And we’ll continue to provide Congress with common-sense strategies for reining in the federal budget. We won’t stop until we get this problem under control.
