Tom Campbell has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. His faculty advisor was Milton Friedman. Prior to that, Tom had obtained his B.A. and M.A. degrees in economics from the University of Chicago, on the same day in 1973. He then entered Harvard Law School where he served on the Harvard Law Review Board of Editors. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law in 1976. After law school, Tom served as law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White. Thereafter, Tom returned to the University of Chicago for his economics doctorate, received in 1980. His free market economics training cemented a life-long commitment to limited government and greater individual liberty. He has posted an article at BigGovernment.com detailing his plan to lower the deficit.
These are the highlights of Dr. Campbell's plan:
- Cap non-defense discretionary spending to fiscal year 2009 levels for a savings of $101 billion. The White House Budget caps this item at fiscal year 2010 levels of $690 billion, but this category already grew from $589 billion in fiscal year 2009--a 30 percent increase. They let it rise by 30 percent before deciding to cap it. We should cap it at once.
- There is no evidence that the stimulus bill has produced the 2 million new jobs the President claims, over what the private sector would have produced if the same funds had been allowed to stay with the private sector. Yet the White House proposes increasing the amount spent from $202 billion in [delete FY] fiscal year 2009 to $353 billion in fiscal year 2010 and $232 billion in fiscal year 2011. I propose cutting this increase in spending over fiscal year 2009 in half for a savings of $292 billion.
- Use the TARP money the banks are returning to pay down the debt for a savings of $200 billion. The money was approved for a specific purpose: to buy the bad mortgages from banks. Since the banks are now returning the money, it should be used to reduce our federal borrowing. It's not "free money," available for other uses, as the White House has proposed.
- Medicaid and SCHIP are 7 percent of the federal budget and spending in this category rose nearly 30 percent from fiscal year 2009 to fiscal year 2010. We need to approach Medicaid and SCHIP the way we did welfare in 1996: don't trim at the edges but announce that there will be a cap and stick with it. Doing so would save $45 billion.
The above suggestions save $750 billion in fiscal year 2010 alone, more than half of the projected deficit. Is anyone in Washington listening?
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