Video: Republican State Treasurer Lynn Jenkins is running for the Second Congressional District in Kansas. Lynn practiced public accounting for twenty years before being elected to the Kansas Legislature, where she served four years. Lynn was elected Kansas State Treasurer in 2002 and re-elected in 2006.
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By U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins
It's time for bailouts to end, both at home and abroad >>
From Parsons to Hiawatha, folks across eastern Kansas are tired of high unemployment, tired of Congress spending more money than we have and tired of rewarding bad behavior with bailouts. We have bailout fatigue, and we don’t understand why the federal government continues to use our hard-earned tax dollars to bail out failing institutions. Unfortunately, the individuals who control Washington have not heard this message. Rather than getting our own fiscal house in order, the federal government is on course to bail out, of all things, another nation.
Over the past six years, due to a costly retirement and health care system, a large public administration and an overall lack of resolve to sustain fiscal discipline, the Greek government has lived beyond its means. The result has been the people of Greece rioting in the streets as their government makes emergency plans to drastically cut spending and increase taxes to avoid defaulting on its debt.
In response, the International Monetary Fund, to which the United States is the largest contributor, has pledged to bail out Greece. Unfortunately for American taxpayers, that means the federal government will take another $50 billion of your money and give it to someone else.
It is not just Greece’s spending and borrowing habits that are unsustainable. Our federal government is projected to reach a $1.5 trillion deficit this year. This spending has caused the nation’s debt to increase by $2.4 trillion in the past 16 months, pushing our national debt to exceed $13 trillion. Further, under current budget guidelines, public debt will double in five years and triple in 10.
However, rather than stopping the reckless spending spree in Washington, leadership has decided it is easier to borrow from nations like China and Saudi Arabia and send the bill to our kids. In fact, our federal government is spending 67 percent more than it is taking in. And even more concerning is the fact that for the first time since the origination of the Budget Act of 1974, the leadership in the House of Representatives is unwilling to attempt to craft a federal budget.
Greece must get its fiscal house in order, but it should not come at the expense of the American taxpayer. I have never supported bailouts because I believe this bailout mentality encourages more wasteful spending and takes away the incentive for folks to make difficult decisions to improve their fiscal health. Greece must serve as a wake-up call. Unsustainable debt and deficits lead to economic ruin. The longer the tough decisions are ignored, the worse the consequences.
Our nation was founded as a society of opportunity, but the out-of-control spending is fundamentally changing the America we know and love. Our country is being transformed from an opportunity society to a welfare society right before our eyes. We cannot afford to continue ignoring these difficult truths as Greece did, and we owe it to our kids and grandkids to make the tough decisions to stop the out-of-control spending and bailouts and to get the deficits and debt in order once and for all.
U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins, a first-term Topeka Republican who represents most of the eastern third of Kansas, is a licensed CPA. She is seeking re-election to the House.
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Related:
Lynn Jenkins on Fiscal Responsibility >>
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