TheHonorable Jack Kingston UnitedStates House of Representatives2372Rayburn House Office BuildingWashington,DC 20515
Dear Representative Kingston,
On behalf of the362,000 members of the National Taxpayers Union (NTU), I write in strong supportof your “Returning to Responsible Fiscal Policies Act,” which would phase in alimit on federal spending amounting to 18 percent of Gross Domestic Product(GDP). By capping spending at a level in line with historical revenue averages,your proposal would allow us to escape from the unsustainable cycle oftax-spend-and-borrow that continues to push America ever closer to financialruin.
In the pastdecade, our deficit has grown like a cancer, with government spendingmetastasizing to the point where it now terminally threatens the fiscal healthof the United States. The moderate spending discipline of the 1990s has quicklyeroded to the point where federal outlays now seem permanently locked in wellabove the postwar average for revenues of 18 percent of GDP. Rather than recalibratethis dire trajectory, Congress and Presidents have consistently ignored orworsened it. Federal leaders failed to grapple with our broken entitlement system,instead choosing to add to their size and scope while also piling on trillionsin so-called “crisis response” spending such as the Troubled Asset ReliefProgram and economic stimulus.
As a result, the federal government hasproduced deficits in 44 of the last 50 years, and our debt looms perilouslyclose to the point of exceeding our entire economic output. While the causes ofthe recent spending spree are myriad and complicated, your bill would enact astraightforward yet potent remedy. It would gradually reduce spending from 23percent of GDP in Fiscal Year 2012 to 18 percent in 2016, a level betterreflecting the typical postwar share of economic output that federal revenueshave represented. If these caps are exceeded, your bill would ensure that aseries of automatic and proportional cuts would occur within three categoriesof spending (direct, security-related discretionary, and non-security relateddiscretionary) based on each category’s level of growth from the previous year.Finally, your legislation improves on past iterations of spending cap legislationby ensuring that no expenditures, with the exception of interest on the nationaldebt, would be exempt from cuts, and strictly limiting emergency spending,which has often been a vehicle for bypassing budget rules.
For decades, NTU has been one of the most strident voices in support of durable, structural budget-process reforms. While we continue to believe that a BalancedBudget Amendment to the Constitution is vital to long-term financial stability,the “Returning to Responsible Fiscal Policies Act” is a clear and capableblueprint for beginning the task of spending reduction right away. For thatreason, NTU endorses your bill and we will urge its inclusion as a necessarycondition to any increase in the debt ceiling.
Sincerely,Brandon GreifeFederal Government Affairs Manager