Featuring Rep. Jim Cooper
(D-Tennessee), Policy Chairman, Blue Dog Coalition, Stephen Slivinski, Director of Budget Studies, Cato Institute and Jagadeesh Gokhale, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute.
On Capitol Hill today there is a hesitancy to address the growth of big government. Yet mounting deficits caused primarily by massive spending hikes threaten to endanger the economic potential of future generations. The creation of expensive new entitlements—like President Bush’s Medicare drug benefit—only makes the problem worse. Meanwhile, members of both parties ignore the need to reform entitlement programs and restrain spending. Excellent ideas to reform the budget process have been proposed by fiscal conservatives on each side of the aisle, but they sit mostly untouched by members of Congress.