Washington Has Your Checkbook – And They Won’t Stop Spending Your Money

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Republicans have a chance to make billions, maybe trillions, of dollars for the country this weekend. With rare backbone, they should actually cut federal spending. If they did, it would utterly shock financial markets and global investors, causing the dollar to surge and the U.S. stock and bond markets to levitate. That adds to pension funds, lowers the cost of capital and would instantly be the biggest jobs program of the outgoing Congress.

To date, the motto of the 2009-2010 Congress has been to “leave no spending undone.” The latest attack on fiscal sanity is the continuing resolution making its way through Congress this weekend. It spends more than last year and extends for nine long deficit-riddled months into 2011. The proposed bill defies the election results, costing as much as $1.2 trillion.

It’s past time for an upheaval in Washington’s tax-and-spend culture. We can’t afford it even another week. Any final 2010 ‘continuing resolution’ should spend less than last year, not more.

Even a 0.5% cut from last year’s bloated levels would be a symbolic victory for the people over Washington, with more to come in 2011. The bill should last no more than three months, leaving the responsibility for most 2011 spending decisions to the newly-elected Congress.

And the bill should be physically short so members and the public can read it - the constitution was handwritten on four pages. If congress did that - a short bill that actually cut spending and lasted just long enough for the new members to fasten their seat belts, voters and markets would jump for joy.