Dear Friends,
It seems to me, there are dozens of ways Congress could lower spending to pay for tax cuts. A few that pop into mind are eliminating all foreign aid, banning non-citizens from all forms of the dole, eliminating tax-free status of NGOs, throw Harvard and Ivy League universities off welfare, liquidate corporate welfare while they’re at it, do an across the board spending cut back to 2000 levels accounting for inflation and eliminate completely the Department of Education, Energy and EPA. That would cut a few trillion a year from the budget. Wage taxes could be extinguished, increasing aggregate demand, and leading to a Keynesian economic boom. Further increasing federal and state tax revenues. Leading to less need to tax the populace, a betrayal of the US founders’ vision.
If we could get the richest of the rich off welfare, like George Soros, Harvard and corporations, the budget would align itself. On the other hand, what good are riches, if they can’t be leveraged into more riches? Like when Soros starts an NGO to lower the lot of mankind, then harvests billions from the US government in tax free money. Even as the same government doling out that money to him, would escalate non-payment of taxes, to shooting you, should you not back down. Showing the government’s priorities and favor. That the government would shoot a poor man to give money to a rich one. I believe this is a reversed priority. The wealthiest must stand on their own two feet and not lean on the labor of workers. So kick the Ivy League, Soros and Gates off welfare.
Cutting back to spending levels of 2000 then accounting for inflation, would rile up the elites. Why? Because they have been under counting inflation and adding it to GDP growth for at least that long. Maybe we could discover what actual inflation was without the shenanigans. The US supposedly spent 1.5 trillion dollars in 2000 as inflation has been 85.7%, according to the BLS via Inflation Calculator, meaning the inflation adjusted budget for 2026 should be around 2.79 trillion dollars. Meanwhile, in 2024 the US government spent 6.1 trillion! Meaning government spending increased at more than double the rate of inflation. With over 5.4 trillion in tax revenues in 2024, a budget of 3 trillion would yield a surplus of 2.4 plus trillion dollar… to cut the deficit and/or taxes.
If the US stopped funding the world, most of the wars would cease due to lack of funding. Because war is expensive. Since the only thing made in America today are weapons of war, the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) has become a grift feedback mechanism. The US funds both sides of a foreign war by sending weapons and non lethal aid. Allowing the war to continue while funding the MIC. Which then pays the politicians and judges it owns with donations and buying their half-witted books. The MIC and foreign wars amounts to a huge drain on the US. Imagine what could be done with that money if it was used by the people who earned it, instead of taken at gun point and sent to kill people? Even as fewer wars mean less hatred within the human race. A win win, for our budget and humanity.
Entire departments of government today are in direct violation of the plain wording of our original Constitution. The IRS for example. It took an amendment to allow for a federal tax on individuals. One that negated the Fourth Amendment, just as prohibition was negated by another amendment. Nowhere in our amended or original Constitution does it give the federal government any power to regulate energy production, education or the environment. That power came from the Supreme Court via Wickard v. Filburn. The billions spent on these unconstitutional agencies would be better in the pocket of waiters and janitors, instead of the pocket of the deep state. The ways to save money in government are as prolific as the cronies on welfare. Set the priorities straight and the budget will straighten itself.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
