Fiscal Responsibility
We must ensure that every dime we spend generates a real return, and that our government lives within its means.
President Bush and the Republican majority in Congress inherited the largest budget surplus in American history. Just seven years later, we face a stunning annual budget deficit of over $500 billion, and a total national debt of nearly $10 trillion. That’s more than $30,000 of debt for every American.
Jim Himes believes that this fiscal path isn’t sustainable, and it isn’t fair to our children and grandchildren. When George Bush and Chris Shays spent more than $2 trillion on tax cuts - giving 150 times more relief to millionaires than to middle class families - they weren’t really cutting taxes at all. They simply shifted the tax burden from the wealthiest Americans today to all of our children, who will eventually have to pay off that $2 trillion in debt.
It’s time to restore sanity and discipline to government spending. In Congress, Jim won’t burden our children and weaken our economy with even more debt. He will support the "pay-as-you-go" funding rule that requires all new spending to be either budget-neutral or offset with other savings.
And Jim will fight to restore fiscal priorities that reflect our values. That means offsetting new spending for genuine priorities like middle class tax relief, education, and healthcare by shifting away from the misguided priorities of the past several years - including special tax breaks for oil companies and the War in Iraq, which alone cost us $13 billion a month.
