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The Taxpayers Protection Alliance has expressed concerns about government-funded broadband for many years.  One program in particular that TPA has highlighted has been the Rural Utilities Service Broadband Loan Program.  We were encouraged last year when during last year’s consideration of the Farm Bill, the Senate adopted an amendment sponsored by Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) which laid out the 25 percent unserved-household standard for the RUS Broadband Loan Program.  This effort received bi-partisan support from co-sponsors Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Michael Bennet (D-Col.), which made significant reforms to the RUS Broadband Loan Program. Even though the program should be eliminated completely, limiting the RUS to serving areas where 25 percent of the households in an applicant’s proposed service is unserved is a step in the right direction.  Today (May 3) TPA sent a letter to the Senate encouraging and urging the Senate to keep Sen. Warner’s language as they craft this year’s Farm Bill.

(The following blog posting is from Joseph Kasibante, President of the National Taxpayers Protection Organisation in Uganda.  TPA supports Mr. Kasibante, and all taxpayer and free market groups around the globe) Although high taxes are generally assumed to be the panacea to balance government budget and finance government expenditure, a lower tax budget and accountable governance has proved to be the most scientific methods government can adequately use to stimulate the economy. A lower tax budget leaves money in people’s pockets to buy things they want or money that can be saved and invested in whatever manner they choose.  Consumers can demonstrate their power by influencing the course of the economy and making themselves heard in matters of ethics and policymaking. In what has come to be known as the 'wealth effect' the  consumers step up purchases when they feel richer and cut back when they feel poorer, shows how a high tax budget accompanied by waste can push the economy into recession.  In simple terms budget can be interpreted as a future plan we cannot immediately fulfill. The personal or family budget is a financial plan that helps individuals to balance income and expenses. A business budget is generally used as a tool to formulate intelligent decisions on the management and growth of a business venture. However, the most complicated budgetary process is a government budget, which is a plan for the collection and expenditure of monies needed to defray public expenses. There are five rigid stages of government budgeting: preparation, presentation, authorization, execution, and audit. I will dwell on budget preparation stage where taxes are the focal point of the budget framework.  Clarifying  the science of  a lower tax budget evolving  higher purchasing power in  the whole economy, taxes must also not be too law to meet government priorities.

President Obama released his long awaited budget today (access all budget documents here).  Two months overdue and dead on arrival to a dysfunctional and divided Congress, the fiscal year (FY) 2014 budget is nothing more than a wish list of things that will never happen.  It is important to look through the budget and see where the President’s priorities are.  The budget proposes to spend $3.78 trillion in FY 2014.  That is $10.3 billion per day, $431 million per hour and $7.2 million per minute.  There are two fundamental problems with the budget, there is too much revenue asked for and not enough spending cuts.  Even though the budget calls for $24 billion in specific spending cuts, Defense spending alone will be $52 billion above the budget cap for next year saving some programs that should be eliminated such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.  The President’s budget also wants to raise more revenue via tax increases on the wealthy and a new program to offer preschool to all 4-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families through higher tobacco taxes.

Although the current state of the federal government comes up short a lot of the time, there are a few redeeming glimmers of hope every now and then.  More times than not, those glimmers come from an entity of government that’s asked to check up on, monitor, and audit other components and arms of the federal government.  These beacons of fiscal responsibility are the Inspector Generals (IGs).  IGs are extremely helpful to taxpayers for a variety of reasons, and they certainly strike a fear in whichever agency that’s the one under the microscope.  For example, just recently the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) IG found that a “Michigan battery-maker that received a visit from President Obama spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in stimulus grant money for workers to do things like watch movies and play cards, according to an inspector general report that blames poor management by the Energy Department. The wasted labor is a system of more widespread mismanagement of the company’s $151 million matching grant…”

On February 14, 2013, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance joined with nine other taxpayer and free market groups to urge Congress to take common sense steps to reform federal supports for agriculture and save taxpayers at least $100 billion over the next decade.  The 113^th Congress has a prime opportunity to reduce the federal government’s meddling in the agricultural sector while helping to pay down our $16 trillion national debt. A number of common sense steps can be taken to create a more accountable, responsive, and cost-effective agricultural policy.  Despite the 2012 drought being one of the most severe in history, the agriculture industry “suffered” with near-record profits. Given today’s extraordinarily high commodity prices and farm profits and our monumental fiscal crisis, agriculture subsidies should be reduced by at least $100 billion over the next decade.  Federal supports for agriculture must be evaluated on their own merits. Though explosive growth in nutrition programs, particularly the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), must be addressed, that discussion must not be used to sidetrack necessary reforms to federal subsidies to agricultural businesses.  Congress must consider changing the law under which America operates in the absence of a new farm bill. The current fallback, the horribly outdated Agricultural Act of 1949, forces taxpayers to decide between Farm Bills with inadequate reforms or reverting to even more detrimental World War II-era law.

Many people are accustomed to waking up on January 1 with a headache.  This year taxpayers woke up to not only the usual headache from a night of excess, but also a headache from the excesses of Congress and the President.  In the early morning hours of today (January 1, 2013) the Senate passed a bill to soften the blow of going over the fiscal cliff.  In reality, the bill may do more harm than good.  The bill extends the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts for individuals making less than $400,000 and families making less than $450,000. In addition, the payroll tax cute will expire meaning that payroll taxes will increase from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent, a real tax increase on the Middle Class.  The real kick in the wallet is a two-month delay in the automatic spending cuts (sequestration).  As reported by Breitbart.com, “According to the Congressional Budget Office, the last-minute fiscal cliff deal reached by congressional leaders and President Barack Obama cuts only $15 billion in spending while increasing tax revenues by $620 billion—a 41:1 ratio of tax increases to spending cuts.”  UPDATE (3:00 pm):  The Congressional Budget Office has pegged the spending cuts at $25 billion. Click here here for a full list of provisions as reported by Politico.  With a $1 trillion deficit and a debt that has eclipsed $16 trillion, the lack of spending cuts is shameful.  Even if all the revenue is used for deficit reduction (which it likely won’t be), the total impact to the $1.1 trillion deficit will be $64.5 billion (if no more spending cuts are approved and the sequestration is avoided).