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Huntsman Campaign Press Release - Out of Touch Dems Blast Balanced Budget, Huntsman as 'Radical'

July 08, 2011

A federal balanced budget amendment will enforce the same measure of discipline on lawmakers already evident in the kitchen table budgeting of Americans.

The Florida Democratic Party on Thursday assailed Jon Huntsman as radical for his endorsement of a popular measure to balance the federal budget by mandating it not exceed total tax revenues.

"Huntsman supports the radical Republican plan that would balance the budget," a spokesman for the state Democratic party said in a release yesterday. How radical, that government liabilities not exceed receipts.

Absent from that statement: Variants of that radical Republican proposal are mirrored in 49 of 50 state constitutions, requiring policymakers to spend -- and cut -- accordingly. The launchpad for the attack is perhaps more curious, though, as the president's reckless spending has left Floridians weathering 10.8 percent joblessness. Change that will leave you unemployed.

A federal balanced budget amendment will enforce the same measure of discipline on lawmakers already evident in the kitchen table budgeting of Americans.

The rhetoric that fuels the attacks on Gov. Huntsman and balancing the budget is the same force that fuels the nation's fiscal mismanagement, vaulting the federal deficit north of $14 trillion and producing an economic climate in which jobs are shed so quickly Americans are today staring down 9.2 percent unemployment nationally. (You'll want to read the governor's take on today's depressing report.)

As the economic indicators -- a still-slumped housing market, depressed retail sales and greater unemployment -- grow worse still, Democrats insist for more robust spending.

But government increases revenue by augmenting the tax base, not the taxes it imposes. Gov. Huntsman proved it in Utah, where he adopted the single largest tax reduction package in state history while still tripling the rainy day fund. And the pace at which the Beehive State created jobs during the governor's tenure wildly outstripped the other states.

Jon Huntsman, Huntsman Campaign Press Release - Out of Touch Dems Blast Balanced Budget, Huntsman as 'Radical' Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/298866

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