Triumph of dogma over thought

News From…
 
Congressman Dennis Cardoza
18th Congressional District of California
 Congressman Cardoza hails long-awaited House passage of PAYGO budget requirement 
    
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 22, 2009  CONTACT:  Mike Jensen
(202) 225-6131
http://www.house.gov/list/press/ca18_cardoza/PRPAYGOHOUSE.html
 
 WASHINGTON, D.C. – With strong support from Congressman Cardoza, the U.S. House of Representatives today passed legislation forcing Congress to reduce federal spending and curtail the national deficit. Specifically, the House passed the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2009.
 
Pay-As-You-Go, or PAYGO, had previously been enacted in Congress during the 1990s and early 2000s. During that time it helped rein in reckless federal spending and restore the first federal budget surplus since 1969. Congressman Cardoza and other fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats have fought for years to reinstate the PAYGO law.
 
“This is a proud day for all Americans, for the Blue Dogs, and for me personally as this is one of the most significant issues I have fought for since I was elected to Congress,” said Congressman Cardoza.  “Returning to the fiscal accountability measures that I and my fellow Blue Dog colleagues have supported is long overdue and it’s high time we start doing the right thing and start paying for what this country buys.”
 
PAYGO requires that any new spending increases or tax cuts are fully paid for. The United States currently has a deficit of more than $11.6 trillion. Much of the new debt being accumulated is held by foreign countries, such as China.
 
Although the House of Representatives has legislated with a rule requiring PAYGO, the House today helped ensure it will become law. Congress will be required to offset every new dollar it spends. If at the end of a particular year Congress has not paid for all the legislation it has enacted, cuts are automatically triggered from certain mandatory programs. This has the full support of the Obama Administration and awaits action in the Senate.
 
 “I could not be more pleased with today’s outcome and am grateful to President Obama and my colleagues for their support,” said Cardoza. “I look forward to prompt Senate action so the President can sign this into law as soon as possible. It is imperative that we take immediate action to address our nation’s spiraling deficit and get back on the road to fiscal responsibility before we pass the nation’s keys — and our debt — onto our children and grandchildren.”
 
Congressman Cardoza further added, “Especially during these difficult economic times, Americans are tightening their belts and spending only what they have. It is time that Congress ensured it did the same.”
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In February 1933, President Herbert Hoover wrote to President-elect Franklin Roosevelt:
 

It would steady the country greatly if there could be prompt assurance that there will be no tampering or inflation of the currency; that the budget will be unquestionably balanced even if further taxation is necessary; that the Government credit will be maintained by refusal to exhaust it in the issue of securities.
 
The rejection of both fiscal (tax and expenditure) and monetary policy amounted precisely to a rejection of all affirmative government economic policy. The economic advisers of the day had both the unanimity and the authority to force the leaders of both parties to disavow all the available steps to check deflation and depression. In its own way this was a marked achievement -- a triumph of dogma over thought. The consequences were profound.
-- The Great Crash 1929, John Kenneth Galbraith, 190.