The debt ceiling has increased from approximately $10.62 trillion to $12.33 trillion in the last year. Now Congress is considering raising the limit to $14.3 trillion!
Instead of increasing the debt ceiling, Senator Tom Coburn has the novel idea to cut spending and leave the debt ceiling alone. The government has gotten fat for years off the American taxpayer by creating more and more programs that do exactly the same thing. For example, there are more than 14 programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education related to foreign exchanges and designed to increase opportunities for students to study abroad.
This amendment to the currently proposed federal debt increase will put the federal government on a massive diet by reducing redundant programs, releasing unspent funds to pay down the debt, thereby saving the taxpayers billions of dollars each year. It will cut spending by $120 billion, consolidate 640 duplicative government programs, and prevents politicians from pursuing the fiscal obesity plaguing our nation.