Government Spending
Government spending just since the beginning of this year includes a $787 billion stimulus bill and more than $450 billion to fund government programs, including thousands of earmarks.
The current budget process shows no end to increased government spending. The president's budget proposed a 12 percent increase in non-defense spending, and while Congress talks about cutting, their plan proposes a 9 percent increase. The budget resolution proposes $3.5 trillion in spending and a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2010.
The five-year period covered by the current budget resolution doesn't include any meaningful cuts in government spending, yet the budget proposes to reduce the yearly deficit from $1.2 trillion in 2010 to $598 billion in 2014.
Without spending cuts, this can only happen in one of two ways: Expand the economy to generate more revenue, or raise taxes. The budget proposes $360 billion in tax increases, including a tax on energy through a cap-and-trade system that would cost about $3,000 per household.
By 2014, budget numbers project that the overall national debt will be about $11.6 trillion, up from $8.8 trillion in 2010. The total debt held by the public would be 67 percent of the value of our entire annual output of goods and services.
While the president recently announced a $15 billion increase in funds for the Small Business Administration's lending programs, only about 1 percent of all small business financing comes via the SBA. Small business owners, who create about 70 percent of the net new jobs, need better access to credit to keep growing. And we need them to lead us out of the recession. But with so much government spending and so little help focused on small business, how will we see the economic boost we need to improve the budget outlook?
Read the letter that NFIB sent to each Representative in opposition to S. Con. Res. 13, the fiscal year 2010 budget conference report.
Read the letter that NFIB sent to each Senator in opposition to S. Con. Res. 13, the fiscal year 2010 budget conference report.