Wednesday, 17 February 2010

McConnell Is Wrong On Commission To Reduce National Debt

It looks like Senate Republican Leader McConnell favors Obama's idea for creating a bipartisan commission to reduce the national debt.

Speaking Wednesday to the Danville-Boyle County Chamber of Commerce, McConnell said “the commission approach is the right way to go.” McConnell said he will recommend three senators to be on the commission, but he wouldn’t name those picks.
“The only instruction I’m going to give them is that I think the problem is that we’re spending too much, not that we’re taxing too little,” he said.
McConnell said he would like the commission “to come up with a way to deal with our large unfunded mandate problem: Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid. We have massive unfunded liabilities because we have promised way more than we can possibly deliver.”

McConnell is correct in pointing out two obvious points. First that we are spending too much and not taxed too little. Second, we can no longer afford to pay for unfunded mandates like Social Security and Medicare. His prescription for the problem is completely wrong.

Why do we need a commission to come up with solutions? Don't we already have a group whose job it is to solve these problems? They go by the name U.S. House or Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Isn't it their job to fix these problems? Why are the deferring to some faceless committee to do their job? Probably because they can't be held responsible for whatever half baked solution this "bipartisan" committee will produce. They are too scared that they might be held accountable for cutting the government or raising taxes on their own. It really is annoying to watch our representatives pass the buck on cleaning up the mess that they created in the first place.

Posted by brians at 9:32 PM in National Politics

Responses (0)

Does No One Want to Lead In This State?

It appears that leaders of the Democratic led state house have a "daring" plan for dealing with the budgetary short fall.

House leaders are proposing a daring budget maneuver that would strip $227 million in General Fund money from the state’s Medicaid program for the next budget year in hopes that the federal government will approve additional stimulus funds for the program starting in 2011.
The federal stimulus money, which has helped keep Kentucky’s $5.4 billion plan in the black, expires Dec. 31, the midpoint of the budget year.
Advocates Tuesday were stunned to learn that the House is considering taking state money from Medicaid — with no guarantee Congress will provide extra money for the health plan, which covers the poor and disabled.
“It’s a scary proposal,’’ said Sheila Schuster, a longtime advocate for the disabled. “It makes me extremely nervous to predicate a budget on a program that affects so many lives on the presumption that the federal government is going to continue additional funding.”
Schuster pointed out that the gamble could leave the program short as much as $1 billion in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. If Kentucky winds up $227 million short in state money for Medicaid, it also would forfeit matching money from the federal government, which provides the greatest share of the state’s Medicaid funds.
The proposal comes as House leaders work to draft a budget plan for the next two fiscal years after rejecting the one offered by Gov. Steve Beshear, who based his on about $780 million in new revenue from expanded gambling he hoped lawmakers would approve.

I don't care about the merits or detractions of the plan. All I know is the plan doesn't address the real problem. Our state is spending too much money! Hoping that the federal government will bail us out again is almost as silly as Beshear hoping for unicorns. The bottom line is we need to SPEND LESS MONEY.

It is really frustrating that no one will lead on this issue. Everyone is looking for some gimmick rather than making the tough choices on what we shouldn't be funding. It really is embarrassing to watch.