A Serious Plan for our Country

President Obama & John Boehner

With the “fiscal cliff” right around the corner, and with President Obama and John Boehner unable or unwilling to be serious about a solution to our national crisis, I wanted to remind everyone that serious proposals have been offered to help our nation avoid these crises.  While  I don’t agree with everything in all the proposals, I appreciate that we have those who take our Countries problems seriously.   
One such proposal was the Penny Plan by Representative Connie Mack.

Lanny Davis

President Clinton's Special Counsel Lanny Davis said this about the plan:  “The Mack Penny Plan seems a goodplace to start -- it is simple, it makes common sense, and with some adjustments protecting the poor and the unemployed, it could be seen as fair even to many of the most liberal Democrats.”

 The Mack plan will achieve a balanced federal budget,  in eight years by bringing federal spending down to average federal revenue over the past 30 years, which is 18% of gross domestic product (GDP).  The bill would cut 1 penny out of every federal dollar spent for the next six years.  After that, the bill sets an overall spending cap of 18 percent of GDP.  

What is different from other spending cut agreements is it has enforcement mechanisms.  Either Congress and the President work together to enact program reforms and cut federal spending by one percent each year; or if Congress and the President fail to do so, the bill triggers automatic, across-the-board spending cuts to ensure the one percent reduction is realized.

There are areas, like Social Security and Medicare where cuts may not be feasible, but Congress has flexibility to cut other areas more so they do not have to cut Social Security or Medicare as much or at all.  As long as they achieve a total reduction of 1 percent of overall spending each year. 

Since Federal spending increased from an already bloated $2.7 trillion in fiscal year 2007 to $3.6 trillion in Fiscal Year 2011, a 33% increase, does anyone think it is unreasonable to ask the federal government to cut spending by an average of 1%?