Flores offers hope after Super Committee's failure

Washington – Dis. 17 freshman Republican Representative Bill Flores, R-College Station, told constitutents there are two ways to cut the deficit following the failure of the SuperCommittee to come up with $1.2 trillion in budgetary cuts over the next 10 years.

“There was just no middle ground,” he said, summing up the debacle.
People should be mindful that the Senate adheres to a Big Business vision of making the economy grow while the House is motivated by a “Small Business, Main Steet, Ronald Reagan” ethic in which you reduce government spending, cut taxes and reduce government regulation.

So far, the Obama Administration has introduced some 410 new administrative rules – 4 times the number proposed by the Bush Administration during its first two years.

He compared the performance of the Roosevelt Administration during the years 1936-38 with its massive government spending and thousands of new government regulations with the Ronald Reagan years of 1981-84, during which the GOP ushered in a new era of reduced spending, reduced regulations and a strong defense commitment.

“All we have to do here in Washington is look to history on how to get us out of trouble.”

You can cut spending in three key areas – Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which total 6 times the Gross Domestic Product at about $100 trillion.

Better than that, you can completely restructure the tax code by eliminating the loopholes that favor one industry over another and cutting corporate income tax from 35% to 25%.

Nothing was done in the budget process to affect the Social Security and Medicare programs for those who are 55 or over, he reminded his listeners during a telephone Town Hall talk. People who are 54 and younger were to be introduced to a new Medicare plan that would have emulated Medicare Part D to subsidize their medical expenses.

It didn't matter, he reminded them, because the budget failed in the Senate, which has failed to pass a budget for the past 2½ years. There is no other solution that problem than a politically expedient solution of voting the rascals out. He told voters in an earlier meeting that it will take 10 new Republican Senators to break the Senatorial logjam that saw 21 out of 25 Republican-authored bills stymied in a balky Democratic Senate.

How do you cut spending?

“Cuts are one way to fix the federal government, but the other way is on the revenue side.” That calls for a complete rebuild of the revenue stream.

For the details, he advised his questioners, go to House.Budget.gov and read over the “Path to Prosperity Budget” proposed by his colleagues on the House Budget Committee.

Asked about redistricting and the federal judicial panel's new maps, he said of the voters suddenly returned to the District 17 boundary, “I never wished you out of the fold.”

Though he is mindful that the process has dealt a certain blow to GOP hopes, he followed up by saying “I will run in whatever distric is ultimately decided. The map that's been drawn is OK with me.”