Louisiana Homeowners Insurance Crisis

The Hidden Utility of Ron Paul's Balanced-Budget Plan: View

Oct. 19 (Reuters) - American voters are entitled to send conflicting messages to elected officials. None is as confusing as the signals from the heart about how to fix the federal budget.

When told that the U.S. deficit is now $ 1.3 trillion, the majority of voters enthusiastically the need to cut, cut, cut. But they balk when asked to name specific programs to reduce staff or out of Lop.

This is why the United States Representative Ron Paul, the libertarian seeking the Republican presidential nomination, performed a valuable public service this week when he unveiled a budget plan that shows exactly what balancing the $3.8 trillion budget through spending cuts would look like.

Paul’s blueprint, released Oct. 17, would balance the books in three years. Admirably, he commits real numbers to paper. He does it in just five pages. And he spares no one: the health- care industry, defense contractors, oil-and-gas companies, federal workers, homeowners, the poor, the middle class and the rich.

In broad terms, Paul (whose chances of making it to the White House are beyond remote) would force Americans to confront their contradictions by slicing $1 trillion from the budget in his first year in office. He would eliminate five Cabinet-level agencies: Commerce, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, and Interior. He would end the Transportation Security Administration. He would pare back most other programs to 2006 spending levels, before the financial crisis and the recession pushed up spending by the trillions.

Block Grants

The congressman wouldn’t stop there. Medicaid would become a block grant to the states, as would food stamps, child nutrition and other income-support programs. He would, of course, zero-out foreign aid. At least he’s egalitarian about it: If elected, Paul would pay himself a salary equivalent to the median personal income of the American worker -- $39,336.

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