June 01, 2006 08:00 AM UTC

O'Donnell Deficit Spending Plan

• 16 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

We’ve got a lot of e-mails to catch up on. Here is Republican Rick O’Donnell’s (CD-7) plan to cut deficit spending, as announced in a press release…

O’Donnell Announces Plan to Stop Deficit Spending

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“Special interests have taken over the budget process and are putting their interests before the people’s interest,” says 7th Congressional candidate?

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The Other Side’s Idea: A Tax Increase Dressed Up as a Budget Gimmick?

WHEAT RIDGE, CO – Rick O’Donnell today outlined ten specific ideas he will pursue in Congress to reform the budget process and stop deficit spending in Washington, D.C. With the federal debt over $8 trillion and increasing by $3 billion every day, Congress needs a leader like Rick who has successfully reduced spending in Colorado government. He will bring that experience and new ideas to stop the sea of red ink in Congress.

“The root of the problem,” Rick continued, “is that special interests have taken over the budget process and are putting their interests before the people’s interest. Partisan interests will use the nastiest, overblown rhetoric, such as accusing the Congressman of taking food out of a baby’s mouth or medicine out of a senior’s hand, to stop responsible efforts to end deficit spending.”

Rick will lead efforts in Washington to stop deficit spending as he has done at the state level. As a key member of Colorado Governor Bill Owens’ cabinet, Rick successfully led efforts to give taxpayers more bang for their buck. He found $75 million in savings in the Department of Higher Education and redirected it to college scholarships for low-income students. Rick implemented efficiency saving measures to reduce operating costs – in some cases by 10% – in state agencies while not reducing services to citizens. Rick oversaw the state’s Sunset Process, which successfully streamlined and reformed more than a dozen different government programs.

In putting together his list of reforms, Rick relied on his experience in Colorado government, scoured the fifty states, listened to budget experts, current and former Members of Congress, and people from all walks of life and both political parties to find the best solutions to cut spending and balance the budget.

“I want to stop deficit spending in Congress so we don’t leave our children with a maxed out national credit card, so we can focus more resources on real problems like health care, renewable energy research and fixing transportation infrastructure, and so government spends less of the people’s tax dollars,” said Rick. The 10 budget reform measures Rick will pursue in Congress are:

1. Eliminate Corporate Welfare & Sweetheart Deals for Business
2. Reduce Pork-Barrel Spending and Politically-Driven Earmarks
3. Require Every Government Agency to Operate 2% More Efficiently
4. Force Congress to Vote on Eliminating Obsolete Programs
5. Ban “Emergency” Spending for Non-Emergencies
6. Break Partisan Gridlock Standing in the Way of Successful Entitlement Reform
7. Stop Funding Programs Not Authorized By Law & Reform the Sunset Process
8. Empower Presidents to More Easily Cut Frivolous Spending
9. Move to Two-Year Budgets & Use Freed Up Time for Increased Oversight
10. Cut Congress’s Budget by 10% – Lead by Example

The details of Rick’s plan are available at www.RickODonnell.com/stopdeficitspending.php.

In announcing his ten-point plan, Rick questioned his potential Democrat opponents’ commitment to fiscal discipline. “If Peggy and Ed share my commitment to ensure we don’t leave our children a maxed out national credit card, where are their new ideas and solutions to stop deficit spending?” asked Rick. “I’ll I’ve heard them propose is to raise taxes on Coloradans, which is nothing but an old idea that has failed time and time again.”

In a recent television interview (Aaron Harber Show, May 12, 2006), Peggy Lamm stated that her number one priority was to balance the budget. Yet on the issues page on her website, Lamm doesn’t even mention balancing the budget. “Does Peggy think she can fool the voters by giving them no details on her number one priority?” asked O’Donnell campaign manager KC Jones. “Maybe she is waiting for the talking points from Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi.”

The other major Democrat candidate is not much better. On his website, the entire extent of Ed Perlmutter’s fiscal responsibility issue section is three sentences: “The Republicans in Washington have been spending YOUR money like drunken sailors on leave. As Senate President Pro Tem, I helped pass mandated balanced budgets in Colorado. I will bring fiscal responsibility back to the halls of Congress and oppose outrageous pork-barrel spending.”

“Ed is long on blame and partisan rhetoric,” said KC Jones, “but short on the things that really matter – new ideas to constructively move America toward a balanced budget.”

Taking their cue from the national Democrats’ talking points, both Peggy Lamm and Ed Perlmutter stated in a recent television interview (Aaron Harber Show, May 12, 2006) that they favor a budget gimmick called PayGo, which is merely a stealth way to raise taxes without stopping deficit spending (http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/060518/general.html?.v=1).

The former head of the Colorado Department of Higher Education, Rick is the Republican candidate for Colorado’s 7th Congressional District, one of the nation’s most competitive open House races. A life-long Jefferson County resident, Rick is running for Congress because he does not want America to be the France of the 21st Century. Rick brings new blood, new energy and new ideas to this race along with an accomplished track record as a proven, bi-partisan reformer of state government.

The 7th district comprises suburbs of metropolitan Denver including Lakewood, Wheat Ridge, Golden, Arvada, Commerce City, Brighton and Aurora.

See Rick’s Detailed 10 Point Plan to Stop Deficit Spending