New Budget Plan from Conservative House Members Would Do Best Job of Shrinking the Burden of Federal Spending

Just days after the introduction of a very good plan by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, leaders from the Republican Study Committee in the House of Representatives have introduced an even better plan.

In a previous post, I compared spending levels from the Obama budget and the Ryan budget and showed that the burden of federal spending would rise much faster if the White House plan was adopted.

If the goal is to restrain government, the RSC blueprint is the best of all worlds. As the chart illustrates, government only grows by an average of 1.7 percent annually with that plan, compared to an average of 2.8 percent growth under Ryan’s good budget and 4.7 percent average growth with Obama’s head-in-the-sand proposal.

According to the numbers released by the Republican Study Committee, the burden of federal spending would fall to about 18 percent of GDP after 10 years if the RSC plan is implemented.

While that’s a great improvement compared to today, the federal government would still consume as much of the economy as it did when Bill Clinton left office.

Last but not least, for those who are focused on fiscal balance rather than the size of government, this is the only plan that produces a balanced budget. Indeed, red ink disappears in just eight years.

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Politicians May Not Be the Lowest Form of Life, but They Know How to Live the Good Life at Our Expense

I’ve been writing too much about the Ryan budget, the government shutdown, and other fiscal policy issues. Time for some wholesome politician bashing.

But I’m not going to pick on the U.S. Congress, which is one of my favorite targets. Instead, we’re going to cross the ocean and mock the political elite of the European Parliament (a.k.a., the Potemkin-Village legislature). These lawmakers don’t really have any real responsibility. They largely exist to give faux democratic legitimacy to the decisions of the European Commission.

But they have figured out how to butter their own bread. They are provided lavish pay and benefits in exchange for very little work. And they get all sorts of perks that might cause even American politicians to blush with embarrassment.

For example, they automatically get to travel in business class, courtesy of the long-suffering taxpayers of Europe. And when somebody has the gall to suggest that this is a waste of money, the politicians link arms and defend their privileged status.

Here are some excerpts from a report in the EU Observer.

MEPs have said parliament’s budget should be increased by 2.3 percent next year, at the same time rejecting a proposal for euro-deputies to take more economy class flights in future. …In adopting the report on Wednesday, MEPs also rejected an amendment to save money by ensuring flights under four hours were carried out on economy class, citing procedural reasons. At present, MEP travel is reimbursed to the level of a business class flight or a first class rail ticket. The rejected amendment would have saved between €15 to €20 million a year… A parliamentary source defended the decision. “Most MEPs agree that economy-flex tickets are okay, but they think the budget procedure is not the way to do this,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

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Cato Conference on Government Spending – Today at 2:00

I’ll see some of you at this important discussion about the economic impact of government spending, but I want to remind folks that they can watch online.

If you want to watch online (or if you want to make a last-minute decision to attend), just click this link for more info.

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