Last week, Gov. Bob McDonnell announced that Virginia had finally caught up with revenue shortfalls and would have a budget surplus for the first time in years to the tune of $220 million.
Balancing the budget in Virginia certainly hasn’t been easy – especially doing so without raising taxes – but a commitment by the governor and House of Delegate Republicans to spending restraint and fiscal responsibility has set the commonwealth’s government up as an example to everyone in this tough financial environment: including the federal government.
The United States government currently owes more than $13 trillion. Roughly $5 trillion is owed to the government itself, such as the Social Security Trust Fund. Then, of the remaining $8 trillion owed, roughly half the debt is held by U.S. lenders and the other half is owed to lenders abroad. The three biggest holders of U.S. debt are Japan, China, and Saudi Arabia.
This year, President Barack Obama (D) has submitted to Congress a budget with a $1.6 trillion deficit. His budget anticipates only collecting $2.2. trillion in revenues, but spends $3.8 trillion. And, over the course of ten years, his smallest deficit is $1.2 trillion.
Even during the worst Bush years (which were bad), the deficit never topped $440 billion.
What is Congress’ response to the president’s budget? To not prepare one of their own.
For the first time since the Budget Act of 1974, Congress has abdicated their responsibility to be good stewards of taxpayer money.
“Good, well-managed budgeting by the General Assembly and the governor, resulted in Virginia having a surplus generated without any tax increases. And, that’s where the federal government needs to be pushed by the people,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, who represents Virginia’s Sixth District. “Nancy Pelosi the Speaker of the House and Steny Hoyer, the Majority Leader, have decided not to even adopt a budget for the coming year. Most people think that’s because it would be so embarrassing that they don’t want to display that in a debate on the floor of the House before this upcoming election. Well, that’s, you know, a crime.”
In 1994, Goodlatte and a host of other fiscally minded Congressman included the Balanced Budget Amendment as a plank on the “Contract with America”.
They almost succeeded.
The amendment passed the House with ease in 1995 and fell just one vote shy of sending the amendment to the states from the Senate when six Democrats who voted for the amendment in 1994 voted against it.
Nevertheless, attempts are still made to propose the amendment for state ratification.
There are two bills right now that are stuck in John Conyer’s (D-MI14) House Judiciary subcommittee – one proposed by Republicans and the other by fiscally minded Democrats.
House Joint Resolution 1 and House Joint Resolution 78are currently languishing in Rep. Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY08) Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties – a committee on which Virginia’s Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA03) serves in the majority.
H.J. Res. 1 is sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte and co-sponsored by 179 members, including other members of the Virginia delegation: Reps. Randy Forbes (R-4th), Rob Wittman (R-1st), Frank Wolf (R-10th) and Eric Cantor (R-7th); in other words,the entire GOP Delegation from Virginia. H.J. Res. 78 is co-sponsored by 40 members, including Rep. Glenn Nye (D-2nd).
Neither bill is expected to make it out of committee this Congress.
Of the Virginia delegation not sponsoring in any way a balanced budget amendment: Scott, Tom Perriello (D-5th), Jim Moran (D-8th), Rick Boucher (D-9th), , and Gerry Connolly (D-11th) – in other words, nearly every Democrat.
Only Nye has the bravery and forsight to see balancing the budget on a yearly basis as a necessity.
Clearly this should offer some indicator of how most Democrats feel about fiscal responsiblity.
But that still doesn’t solve this year’s budget dilemma.
Republican Whip Eric Cantor, again, from Virginia, has begged the president, Pelosi and Hoyer to make even baby steps towards fiscal restraint.
To set the wheels in motion for effective deficit reduction, Republicans over the last five weeks have brought over $115 billion in spending cuts to the House floor. But the Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, rejected them.
We’re not going to give up. In fact, I challenge the president, Pelosi and Hoyer to work together with us to cut spending now:
* Start by scheduling a clean up-or-down vote on each of the program terminations that Obama recommended in his budget this year. Not every member will agree with each proposal, but they each deserve a fair debate and a fair vote. Can’t a Democratic Congress even give fair consideration to spending cuts proposed by a Democratic president?
* Second, announce a bipartisan agreement that we will not proceed with any new “stimulus” spending that is not paid for with spending cuts somewhere else. For example, rather than just spending another $34 billion on unemployment benefits, let’s pay for it by cutting other, less important, spending. (It’s the refusal of congressional Democrats to find offsetting cuts that is now preventing the extension of jobless benefits.)
* Third, freeze the pay of federal civilian employees for one year. Millions of private-sector workers have taken pay cuts; there’s no reason why the government can’t impose its own measure of austerity. This proposal already has bipartisan support: 18 House Democrats recently supported a similar measure offered by Republicans.
I can already hear the critics saying that all this would have only a small impact on our deficit. But that’s just the thinking that got us into this mess. Yes, these are small steps toward getting our fiscal house in order — but each is long overdue, and it’s a start.
It would appear that Democrats in Congress are stifling the protests of those who are aware that the federal budget is out of control, but will Republicans running for Congress be much better?
Keith Fimian in the 11th is very clear on the issue:
“Congress is driving the United States closer to fiscal ruin with every passing day. Moving forward on a balanced budget amendment is critical to saving our economy and forcing Congress to examine its spending,” said the Fimian campaign.
And that’s just fine according to Goodlatte.
“We need to be spending as much time as possible talking about the debt and government spending and the relation between the two,” he said. “Somehow the federal government and its leaders has seem fit to exempt themselves from economic reality.”
Hopefully the news of Virginia’s success at balancing its budget on a year-to-year basis – despite its challenges and objections from Democrats – will be an example to others at the Federal level that they too have the responsibility to safeguard taxpayer money and not bankrupt our nation.
And it’s, for the most part, Virginia Republicans leading the charge to make that a reality.
(Image credit: Governor of Virginia)
