Scott Garrett’s Ambition

Folks, we’re living in an alternate universe. It’s a universe in which Scott Garrett is vying to become Chairman of the House Budget Committee should the Romney/Ryan ticket prevail and should Republicans remain in control of The House of Representatives.

You may recall that for the last two years, Scott Garrett has offered up the Republican Study Committee’s more conservative alternative to the Ryan Budget proposal.  Apparently adding an $4.6 trillion to the deficit and gutting discretionary spending on such “frivolous” programs as monitoring the safety of our food, immunizing our children from disease and keeping airline safety regulators on the job (as proposed in the Ryan Budget) didn’t go far enough toward harming our economy and the removing the safety pieces put in place over the lifetime of our Republic.

Scott Garrett’s proposal posed an even greater thread to our economy than the Ryan plan did.  In addition to keeping Ryan’s replacement of Medicare with a voucher system, Garrett  proposed two far-reaching cuts.  One would cut discretionary spending by nearly $100 billion more in 2013.  He would then cap spending at that reduced level for 5 years.  Like the Ryan proposal, Garrett’s plan requires us to take him at his word because neither Representative wants to actually tell the American people what specifically will be removed from the current budget.

In point of fact, in order to meet Garrett’s budgetary targets, practically all discretionary spending expect that allocated toward defense would have to be ELIMINATED.    Enactment of Mr. Garrett’s proposal would have meant we could no longer track down and retrieve loose nuclear materials as we’d likely have to close the doors at The Department of Energy.   We would no longer be able to fund the SEC so Scott Garrett would get his wish of completely unregulated financial markets.  Of course, Mr. Garrett would need to find a way to keep the $40 billion subsidy he supports for the oil and gas industry.

My point here is that elections – as always have consequences.  Scott Garrett’s vision for our economy and the for The United States in general is a dangerous one.  Out of one side of his mouth he preaches financial restraint and out of the other pushes for tax cuts for the wealthy.  He doesn’t propose a revenue offset for these tax breaks because despite what any credible economist says (including several Republican ones) tax breaks don’t grow the economy enough the pay for themselves and certainly don’t stimulate the overall economy in any measurable way.

The voters of the 5th District of New Jersey are the only people with the power to stop Scott Garrett in his tracks.  Remember that fact on November 6th and keep it in mind when you talk with people who aren’t sure who they’ll vote for or if they’ll even go to the polls at all.