Spending

By Patrick "Kit" Bobko

Kit Bobko has the courage to stop Washington's addiction to tax-and-spend policies that have contributed to out-of-control spending and record debt.

The United States' current debt is $14 trillion dollars, and the Congressional Budget Office ("CBO") announced the largest monthly deficit in history for February 2011 + $223 billion. The federal government's spending this year comes out to just a little more than $32,000 for every household in the country. Forty-two cents of every dollar the federal government spends is being borrowed from future generations. But the business-as-usual politicians in Washington don't seem too concerned by all this because the federal government has now run a monthly deficit for a record 29 straight months.

We must act today to save tomorrow. Californians understand the problems that arise from out-of-control spending, and want to see our government stop piling-up mountains of debt. We must face up to this cancer of debt before it destroys our country from within, and Mr. Bobko has made a commitment to Californians to tackle the spending problem.

As a starting point, Mr. Bobko will work to reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy, vote against any new so-called "stimulus" programs, and oppose the creation of new entitlement programs or the growth of old ones that will add to the federal government's debt. We simply cannot continue to create new obligations with money we do not have. We must also freeze the federal budget at 2008-levels, and allow private sector growth to shrink the budget's relative size.

Mr. Bobko will work to reform our entitlement programs. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are broke and will bankrupt our country if we do not fix them. Benefits to those who currently receive them or who are approaching retirement should not change. But for those who have not begun to receive them, the programs must be reformed or they will simply fail to exist. On their current trajectories, these entitlement programs will soon consume an ever-increasing portion of the federal budget to the exclusion of everything else. Mr. Bobko is prepared to confront these facts, and discussion meaningful common-sense solutions with Californians that will safeguard our future.