Budget Cuts Alone Sufficient for Closing Deficit Without Tax Increases or Social Security Benefit Cuts; IPI Expert Available 2/26/2004
From: Sonia Hoffman of the Institute for Policy Innovation, 703-912-5742 or shoffman@ipi.org. News Advisory: Lawmakers do not have to cut Social Security benefits or raise taxes in order to reduce looming federal deficits. The right combination of budget cuts-and budget cuts alone-can provide better, long-term deficit reductions while at the same time protect America's seniors. IPI Senior Research Fellow Stephen Moore offers a commonsense combination of budget cuts that reduce the size of government by more than two-fifths over the next 10 years and costs only $1.5 trillion, as opposed to the current $2.6 trillion budget: 1. Eliminate unnecessary and wasteful programs, 2. Privatize federal assets and using the proceeds for debt retirement, 3. Devolve federal programs like education, transportation and welfare to the states, 4. Replace all federal anti-poverty programs with a more generous Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) that requires work as a condition of federal assistance, 5. Use market-based incentives to fix federal entitlement programs, 6. Abolish all corporate welfare, 7. Enact legislation to make any American with a net income of more than $1 million a year ineligible for any form of federal aid, 8. Fix the federal budget rules to end the inherent bias in favor of spending, rather than saving money and cutting taxes, and 9. Attach a tax cut dividend for all taxpayer to all spending reduction proposals as a way to build a taxpayer constituency for spending cuts. WHO: IPI Senior Research Fellow Steven Moore, author of "Putting Taxpayers First-A Federal Budget Plan to Benefit the Next Generation of American Taxpayers" WHAT: Lawmakers do not have to follow Greenspan's recommendation to reduce the federal deficit by cutting Social Security benefits. By enacting a commonsense combination of budget cuts alone, lawmakers can both trim the deficit and protect seniors. WHEN: Available immediately to television, radio and print. ------ The Institute for Policy Innovation is a national, public policy think tank with offices in Washington, D.C. and Dallas, Texas. |