Taxpayers for Common Sense president Ms. Ryan Alexander Statement on the release of
Sliding Past Sequestration: Two Trillion in Common Sense Cuts To Avoid the Fiscal Cliff

Washington, DC – Happy Fiscal New Year! Thanks for joining us today. I’m Ryan Alexander, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a national non-partisan budget watchdog. And what we have been watching recently hasn’t been pretty. There’s been a bunch of finger pointing about the fiscal cliff and the automatic across the board cuts known as sequestration that would shave $1.2 trillion off of federal spending.

Sequestration is bad. It is irresponsible. It would cut the best and the worst the government has to offer without distinction. And no amount of finger pointing can change the fact that both Congress and the President are responsible for this threat. Not one, not the other, but both. And only by working together will they defuse the ticking budget time bomb that would cut $1.2 trillion indiscriminately.

Instead of being fiscal cliff jumpers, Congress can dive into the hard work of cutting spending, finding revenue, and reforming entitlements to turn the country’s fiscal situation around.

We came up with $2 trillion worth of deficit reduction in our report, Sliding Past Sequestration. All of these common sense cuts are possible if Congress and the President choose to put the country ahead of partisanship or parochial pandering.

We don’t need to waste more money on the Overseas Private Investment Corporation or Beach Replenishment. There’s more than $1 billion to start. Everyone agrees that writing checks to farmers simply for owning land that used to be farmed is a waste, so let’s cut it and save another $56 billion. Every tax break isn’t good and necessary. So let’s eliminate the deduction for state and local sales tax. There’s another $23 billion. Or eliminate the allowance of Last-in, First-out accounting and save another almost $67 billion.

We hear a lot of talk from Members of Congress about the urgency of addressing our nation’s fiscal problems and the horrors of sequestration. They’re right: the nation is $16 trillion in debt, and sequestration is bad policy. But now is the time for Congress and the President to start rolling up their sleeves and, dollar by dollar, reverse the unsustainable fiscal trends. After the election it’s up to the lame duck Congress to put their money where their mouth is and walk the walk on fiscal responsibility.

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Taxpayers for Common Sense is an independent and nonpartisan voice for taxpayers, working to increase transparency and expose and eliminate wasteful and corrupt subsidies, earmarks, and corporate welfare. For more information, visit: www.taxpayer.net