How the Federal Government Can Get Its Spending Under Control

By Justin Bogie and Romina Boccia

The federal government has a spending problem that threatens to swallow up the resources of the American taxpayer and crush the American economy. Congress can begin to solve this dilemma if it expands self-imposed restrictions to the part of the budget that is driving the country toward crisis.

With Congress reneging on its promise to restore regular order and likely heading toward a massive continuing resolution or omnibus appropriations bill that will bust the Budget Control Act’s discretionary spending caps once again, it is time for a different approach.

A House Budget Committee member, Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., and the Senate Budget Chairman Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., have introduced the “Penny Plan,” which would implement an aggregate spending cap beginning in 2017 and “would cut a single penny from every dollar the federal government spends.”

Under this plan, for fiscal year 2017, the cap would be $3.6 trillion for total noninterest outlays minus 1 percent. For each subsequent year through 2021, outlays would be capped at the previous year’s level (not including net interest payments) minus 1 percent. Starting in the fiscal year 2022, and all subsequent years, total spending would be capped at 18 percent of gross domestic product, in line with the historical revenue average......To Read More....

My Take - All this sounds good but it's doomed to fail just as every other plan to curtail the insane waste of taxpayers money by the federal government.  Why?  Because the cash flow isn't being cut off and the power structure will remain in place.  There's only one fix that will work.  Repeal the 16th and 17th amendments.  Once the cash flow is stopped the spending will stop, and once Senators are  again appointed by the states to be their ambassadors to the central govenment - the central government will shrink like a balloon losing it's air.