All I Want for Christmas... Is A 40% Smaller Federal Budget

I feel like a lot of my tax money is spent on programs that will never benefit me or my children, in any way at all.

Federal programs are supposed to benefit the entire country, not specific groups or places or businesses.

So I support spending on national infrastructure, transportation, communications, defense of our borders (not around the world), dominance in space, education (improving the quality and number of teachers, not adding more testing or bureaucracy), and regulation of harmful substances that businesses try to sneak into their products for costs savings or whatever without regard for the health and safety of their own customers.

I oppose spending on welfare, social security, any benefits at all for illegal immigrants, forced insurance, and most other services that should be provided by families, friends, and charities.

But most of all, I oppose spending that exceeds our national income, and I abhor the idea of ANYONE - rich, middle class, or poor - paying more taxes simply because lawmakers can't JUST SAY NO to the next "good idea",  so worried that people won't vote for them or pay their re-election campaign expenses if they don't support certain programs.

Being in Congress is more than just representing the loudest mouths in your district. It's about dedicating your time to studying the issues and making decisions that are best for our state and our nation, and sometimes that means saying "NO" to spending proposals that just don't belong in the federal budget.

Just as millions of households, including mine, had to cut their expenses the last few years in order to survive the recession without racking up junk debt,  so does the federal government need to cut a lot of expenses in order to get in shape.

Neither I nor millions of my fellow Americans had the luxury of simply voting for an increase in our household incomes, and so the federal government should not toy with the idea of simply taxing the problem away.

Our federal budget needs extreme cuts and this year, all I want for Christmas is a federal budget that's 40% to 50% smaller than what it was last year.

Any lawmaker who shows character by voting to cut non-essential programs from the federal budget, and to reduce the size of other programs that are too bloated and inefficient, as unpopular as this may be, is welcome to eat at my dinner table and sleep on my couch... even if I'm an advocate of some of the programs that are cut.