When we start talking about millions, billions, and even trillions of dollars, it's difficult to comprehend what these numbers actually mean. Congressman Jo Bonner has put together this great graphic to get you thinking in simpler terms about how much money your government is really spending.





Our nation's debt, which is the money owed by our government, currently sits at the highest it's been in our nation's history, at $11.7 trillion. Couple that with our rising deficit which has well exceeded $1 trillion (another record) and is on its way to $2 trillion fast, and our debt becomes a far less attractive purchase to other nations.  That could force the U.S. to pay higher interest rates in order to sell our debt abroad.   We will soon be confronted with the growing threat of higher interest rates, rising inflation, and a weakened dollar – all dismal economic scenarios.

I’ve said all along, every responsible American family knows that you pay back your loans before you take out new ones.  Unfortunately, Washington needs to be reminded.  It’s long past time for Congress to stop talking about tough decisions and start making them.   

As August winds down, Congress will soon be back in Washington trying to slap together an expensive health care overhaul. And whether it entails a "public option" or "co-op," a government take over of our health care system is simply unacceptable. In fact, the latest news in Washington is that the White House and the Democrat majority are so gung ho about passing health care legislation that they will go forward with what's being called a "nuclear option" with no Republican input.

The American public is demonstrating obvious and sincere concern about what a health care overhaul will entail.  And, it seems to me that shoving legislation down their throats will do very little to assuage those concerns, frustrations and fears.

There are too few shining examples of profitable and efficient government enterprise – take a gander at the failing postal service or struggling Amtrak, for example – for us to entrust the nation’s health care system to Washington’s management and oversight.

Ironically, in trying to make the case that private insurers could compete with a government option, President Obama stated himself that it's the government-backed postal service that's failing.  At a townhall in New Hampshire earlier this month, President Obama stated:

"I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It's the post office that's always having problems."

If that's the case, why in the world would we entrust our health care system which accounts for 18% of our nation's economy – not to mention the health and well-being of our loved ones – to the federal government?  They can’t even run a used car exchange program called "Cash for Clunkers" effectively.  They’ve got it so wrapped up in red tape that struggling car dealers can’t tell which end is up any more.

What Americans must be weary of is any legislation that gives more power and oversight to the federal government when it comes to your personal health care decisions. And, we must remember to look at long-term consequences as well.  Some of the changes they are peddling will come quickly.  But, others will come gradually over several months and years – and those are the ones to watch most carefully.

As Newt Gingrich points out:

"The point is not that a health care rationing system … will be implemented in the United States tomorrow.

"The point is that, as in the British system, once government becomes the single payer or even the main payer of health care, what were once intensely personal decisions become public decisions.  And as costs rise, government will look for ways to contain them. 

"The inevitable result of this pressure to control costs will be rationing, whether it occurs during this administration or the next.  At some point, the government will be forced to deny care to those who don’t meet the latest “quality-adjusted life years” cost-benefit analysis.

"So the decision on what treatment to pursue that once would have been made by you and your doctor is now made for you by a bureaucrat using a formula -- a formula to literally determine if your life is worth saving."

Rather than increasing government control, we must reform the health care industry by empowering the American people and giving them control over their health and financial destinies.  Allowing the government to make health care decisions for us is just asking for trouble.

One of the issues being overshadowed by the administration's massive deficit spending, cap-and-trade energy tax, and government take-over of our health care system is the effort to diminish freedom of speech on the airwaves by reviving the Fairness Doctrine.

In contrast to its name, the Fairness Doctrine would effectively ensure that the liberal viewpoint is promoted on the air to give a "fair and balanced" take on important issues of the day. It's a ridiculous notion, as today we are blessed with a myriad of news outlets and formats: cable news, the internet, and satellite radio, to name a few. If you don't like what you're hearing and find it biased, you can change the station and you will surely find something to your liking. What the Fairness Doctrine is about is the popularity of conservative talk radio.

The Heritage Foundation points out that "in such an environment, it is hard to understand why the federal government must police the airwaves to ensure that differing views are heard. The result of a reinstituted fairness doctrine would not be fair at all. In practice, much controversial speech heard today would be stifled as the threat of random investigations and warnings discouraged broadcasters from airing what FCC bureaucrats might refer to as 'unbalanced' views." The Fairness Doctrine was shelved in the 1980s.

Yet, sadly, the revival of the Fairness Doctrine is a very real possibility – particularly with this Administration.

In fact, Mark Lloyd, a former senior fellow at the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, has been appointed as “Chief Diversity Officer” of the FCC. It's been reported that "Lloyd is a vocal proponent of the Fairness Doctrine and recently wrote that the Doctrine, and other regulatory tools such as localism and diversity mandates, should be employed by the FCC to limit the number of conservative voices on the air and supplant them with liberal voices.  He also suggests fining conservative radio stations up to $250 million and giving the proceeds to national public radio."

Now, Mr. Lloyd is in a position to make his ideas into policy.  Clearly, while this issue has taken a backseat in the headlines, it remains alive and well.

To learn more about the dangers of the Fairness Doctrine, check out "Don't Touch My Dial," a website and coalition set up by several radio show hosts to counter censorship efforts by the FCC.

I came across a great piece (albeit a very troubling one) in the Washington Times on Tuesday detailing why our nation needs to rein in our overspending because "the United States is functionally bankrupt.” And this column doesn’t even take into account that a trillion-dollar overhaul of our health care system continues to remain a very real possibility.

This is real money we're talking about here, and real people’s futures.  To assume that we can spend as much as we like with little or no repercussions is flat out wrong and irresponsible. I encourage you to take a couple of minutes and give the piece a read. We can no longer afford to pass our financial burdens off to future generations.

"The United States is functionally bankrupt. Our collective capacity to deal with this astonishing fact is seemingly nonexistent. Our national politics have become show business, exhibiting a complete refusal to strategically respond to this reality.

"Let's look at the simple numbers of our national debt. Our on-the-books national debt is $11.6 trillion. But off-the-books federal debt, including Medicare and Social Security, is $107 trillion. This is not a made-up number; this is the money we should have in the bank, according to the federal government's own accountants, to pay for our current promises to our retirees and future retirees, and this doesn't include unfunded obligations that we have to the pensions and benefits promised to federal workers and veterans. Nor does it include huge unfunded pension and benefit obligations for other public employees at levels below the federal government.

"But let's just add the $11 trillion to the $107 trillion, and we get $118 trillion. These are big numbers but still just fifth-grade math. Now our total annual national output, or gross domestic product (GDP), is about $14.3 trillion. Total federal receipts, or income if stated in business terms, are about $2.5 trillion. This means that our debt to federal income ratio is about 47, and that ratio assumes that the federal revenues are free to retire the obligations, which they are not. We must pay for defense and a myriad of other programs. Again, in business terms, there is no free cash flow to pay these massive obligations.”

Read the entire piece

It’s been reported this week that over half of Minnesota's public schools – or 1,048 schools – appear to have fallen short of the goals put forth by the federal law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). A year ago, 936 of approximately 1,950 public schools fell short and failed to meet “Annual Yearly Progress.”

I find this statistic extremely misleading and I think most Minnesotans do as well because we do not believe that 50% of our schools are failing our children.  We do not think our teachers are failing our children in 50% of the schools in our state.  And, we do not think that our children are getting failing educations in 50% of our schools.  This statistic is the result of federal bureaucrats putting in place their standards and benchmarks – standards and benchmarks that should be reserved for local officials, teachers, and parents at the local level.

The fact of the matter is that when you accept federal funding for education, you open the door to federal control. I entered politics because I wanted to give my children the incredible educational experience I received from public schools as a student. However, NCLB makes it nearly impossible for local schools to tailor their educational programs and curricula to meet their students’ needs and give our children the education they deserve.

This is an issue I've cared deeply about for some time now. In fact, as a State Senator in Minnesota in 2004, I introduced a bill that would extract Minnesota from the strictures of the No Child Left Behind law. This bipartisan legislation would have kept Minnesota from receiving federal funds for public education had it gotten past its unanimous approval in the State Senate, but it has been well documented that the costs for a state to comply with the program's requirements far exceed the funding received from the government:

•    A September 2005 study by the Virginia Department of Education found that local school districts would have to spend $62 million, $60 million, $61 million and $65 million more than they would receive from the federal government through fiscal year 2008 to administer NCLB.

•    A similar study in New Mexico in May 2005 found that the state would have to spend $37 million, $31 million and $26 million more than it received in new federal dollars for 2003-2005 school years, respectively.

•    Studies in March and May 2005 by the Connecticut State Department of Education found that through fiscal year 2008, it would cost the state – just the state – $41.6 million to administer NCLB.  In looking at local school districts, it found that just three school districts would have additional unmet costs of $22.6 million.

If this latest assessment of Minnesota's public schools tells us anything, it's that No Child Left Behind must be repealed and control of our education returned to the local level. Our children and teachers deserve better.

One of the more notable promises from the campaign trail by President Obama back in 2008 was his promise not to raise taxes by one single dime on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. Cap-and-trade and expiring tax cuts aside, it's taken only six months for the President to publicly consider reneging on his campaign pledge.

As the Wall Street Journal points out:

"Asked about raising taxes on the middle class on Sunday on CBS’s 'Face the Nation,' White House economist Larry Summers wouldn’t repeat Mr. Obama’s pre-election promise. 'It is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out no matter what,' Mr. Summers said—except, apparently, when his boss is running for office. Meanwhile, on ABC’s 'This Week,' Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also slid around Mr. Obama’s vow and said, 'We have to bring these deficits down very dramatically. And that’s going to require some very hard choices.'

"These aren’t even nondenial denials. The Obama advisers are laying the groundwork for taxing the middle class while claiming the deficit made them do it."

It must also be noted that Democrats have already raised the cigarette tax and the House has passed a cap-and-trade bill at the President's urging that will directly raise the costs Americans pay for their energy. But perhaps worst of all is a proposal being floated directly by the Obama Administration of a value added tax (VAT).

"So waiting in the wings is the biggest middle-class tax increase of them all: a European-style value added tax, or VAT. This tax would apply to every level of production or service, and it is beloved by politicians in Europe because it raises so much money so easily without voters noticing. Ezekiel Emanuel, a White House aide and brother of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has advocated a 10% VAT to finance national health care. Look for a VAT to be one of the prominent options when Mr. Obama’s tax reform commission issues its report later this year."

At the end of the day, someone has to pay for the President's health care overhaul, and sadly it's looking more and more that it will be middle-class America picking up the tab.