The Tea Party Debt Commission: What would they cut?
FreedomWorks has been traveling the country holding Tea Party Debt Commission Hearings. Why? To figure out what Tea Partiers would cut and offer the findings as suggestions before the Congressional Super Committee has its own hearing.
To learn more about this project, here’s the background and current information.
The New York Times published some of the findings.
The most popular idea, supported by 93 percent, was repealing what the site referred to as “Obamacare,” the health care overhaul legislation passed in March 2010. After that, the most popular ideas were reducing duplicative purchases of Pentagon supplies (90 percent), eliminating the Department of Education and privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (81 percent each), and reducing discretionary spending to 2008 levels (76 percent).
Some more info from Roll Call:
Tea partyers also want to eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a move that would save $530 billion over the next 10 years, according to a FreedomWorks estimate.
“People love the idea of cutting out whole departments,” Dean Clancy, the organization’s legislative counsel and vice president of health care policy, wrote in a memo to colleagues on Monday. “This confirms our findings at the field hearings, where eliminating departments always gets very loud applause, especially the Department of Education.”
And via U.S. News and World Report, the top ten cuts the Tea Party would make:
- Repeal Obamacare (93%)
- Reduce duplicative purchases of Pentagon Supplies (90%)
- Eliminate Department of Education (81%)
- Privatize Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac (81%)
- Reduce discretionary spending to 2008 levels (76%)
- Block grant Medicaid (74%)
- End ethanol tax credits (71%)
- Sell needless federal buildings (71%)
- Eliminate HUD (70%)
- Reduce Medicare teaching subsidies (68%)
Americans are ready for bold cuts. Our situation is critical, and the Tea Party understands that we just can’t afford to maintain the status quo anymore. Dramatic changes have to be made to solve America’s problem, and these are very real suggestions for the Super Committee to consider as they write their final recommendations.
