Federal Deficit: Will Someone Please Stop the Insanity?

I’m sitting in my campaign office working on a policy statement (I’m running for U.S. Senate in Virginia as a Republican Tea Party candidate) when the following headline from the Washington Times comes across my computer, “Government posts biggest monthly deficit ever.” Now, that is something to be proud of– if you are President Obama or a member of Congress and believe the more you borrow the better.

The Congressional Budget Office just released preliminary numbers Monday that show a $223 billion federal deficit for February alone – an especially amazing accomplishment in just 28 short days, even for the United States Congress. In fact, it is the largest single monthly deficit in the history of our country! Compare this February deficit of $223 billion to the entire 2007 fiscal year deficit of $163 billion. Does this look like insanity now?

Now, what is even more frustrating is that during the month of February we had House Republican Leaders who had promised us $100 billion in cuts, but could muster only $61 billion in cuts. And even worse, we had the Democrats who made the bold proposal (sarcasm implied) of a staggering $6 billion in cuts, and then had the audacity to call that meeting the Republicans half-way.

The Washington political establishment has such a distorted view of reality that they are sending out emails praising their two-week CR extension that included a meager $4 billion in cuts. Something is seriously wrong when we have a one-month record deficit of $223 billion and a budget of over $3,552,000,000,000.00 (that is a lot of zeros) and Congress can’t even find $100 billion to cut. And, no, I don’t care that the fiscal year is already half over.

Deficits have consequences. There is no doubt that President Obama’s and Congress’ spending policies will destroy our economy if we do not take drastic measures to rein in our spending. A $223 billion deficit in February alone means we are borrowing more money from China and other foreign countries. In addition to the deficit spending, add the fact that every minute the U.S. sends $641,172 to foreign countries for oil because we refuse to pursue energy policies that would move us towards energy independence. Do we really want to be beholden to China, Russia, Venezuela and the Middle East? Because that is exactly what our leaders are doing to us!

We need a serious reality check in Washington. We need to stop this silly nonsense of proposing a few billion in cuts and think we are accomplishing something.

Either we choose as a nation to make the painful (and yes they will be painful) choices now to cut spending or the sacrifice later will be more serious than any of us want or can even imagine. Raising the debt ceiling will only perpetuate this insane behavior. We should hold the line on raising the debt ceiling, cut spending from all areas of the budget, and take entitlements off autopilot.

A $223 billion deficit in just the 28 days of February is sheer insanity. No more posturing. We need our leaders to show the courage to achieve meaningful results before it is too late.