CUT SPENDING AND QUIT PLAYING GAMES WITH OUR MONEY

February saw the highest deficit in American history. The yearly deficit for fiscal year 2007 was a little over $160 billion dollars. February 2011 saw a MONTHLY deficit exceeding $230 billion with similar deficits every month expected for the foreseeable future. Democrats have shown they have absolutely no interest in cutting spending or ending deficit spending and decreasing the debt. As the figures for February were being revealed, Democrats in the Senate declared they were willing to sign on to ONLY $6.5 billion dollars of the $61 billion dollars in cuts proposed by House Republicans.

$6 billion dollars in so minuscule it would be laughable if it were not for the fact that Democrats are not only serious about this joke but think they are doing their job and the American people should be thrilled with them for doing so. Now don't get me wrong the $61 billion proposed by Republicans does not even scratch the surface but at least it is a step in the right direction.

The trouble is, no one wants to tackle the problem enough to matter in the least. Democrats in actuality do not want to cut period and Republicans are reluctant to tackle the meat of the problem, the massive spending in entitlement programs and wasteful defense spending. Yes the defense budget can be cut without reducing soldiers salaries or taking away the needed material and weapons to protect them as they defend our country.

Additionally eliminating the Department of Education should be on the table. This financial monster has only been in existence since Jimmy Carter created it in 1977. It has been one of the greatest failures of government as education has plummeted and students are taught tests rather than true education in order to allow schools to continue receiving public funding. More money is spent than ever before and students are less educated than ever before. The generations before 1977 were well educated WITHOUT a government department for education and we need to return to those days.

Talking a good game and playing a good game are two completely different stories. Democrats talk fiscal responsibility but continue to propose massive socialist spending far exceeding any phantom cuts they speak of and that includes Barack Obama. Republicans talk cutting but are not willing to make the big cuts that are necessary to get spending under control and end deficits while beginning to pay off the debt.

Instead of proposing tens of billions of dollars in cuts Republicans must begin cutting to the tune of hundreds of billions. Democrats are still not going to agree with the cuts so Republicans must get a stronger backbone and use the continuing resolutions as a means of forcing Democrats to cutting by closing the government down if necessary to get spending cut agreements.

Republicans are still of the mind set that it is the mid nineties when the Newt Gingrich Congress shut the government down and Bill Clinton used it against them by telling the American people Republicans were starving grandma and taking away school lunches. That was a different time and era. Democrats have tried to use the same tactics as the possibility of a government shut down has loomed but this time the people are not buying the lie and polls show that most favor shutting down the government especially if it will force spending cuts.

The GOP needs to wake up to the reality of the will of the people who are more concerned about cutting spending than in providing funding for a government that is not only broken but failed. Use the continuing resolutions as leverage and shut the government down until Obama and Dems agree to large cuts. Get off the minimal cut band wagon and start making real and deep cuts or we will find ourselves bankrupt and The United States of America becoming a third world nation bowing to country's who own our debt and watching the end of our way of life with little ability to restore the free and prosperous America that we all know and love.

Ken Taylor