Editor's note: The solutions to what ails our government are found on the political right. And the nation's best conservative think tank is the Heritage Foundation. Their latest proposal is excerpted below. Follow the link to read the entire report.
Saving the American Dream: The Heritage Plan to Fix the Debt, Cut Spending, and Restore Prosperity
By Stuart Butler, Ph.D. , Alison Acosta Fraser and William Beach
Saving the American Dream is The Heritage Foundation's plan to fix the debt, cut spending and, above all, restore prosperity. It balances the nation's budget within a decade-and keeps it balanced. It reduces the debt and cuts government in half. It eliminates government-mandated health care and fully funds our national defense. It squarely confronts Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the three so-called entitlement programs, which together account for 43 percent of federal spending today.
To encourage Americans to become more fiscally responsible, the Heritage plan redesigns our entire tax system into an expenditure tax that will have a single, flat rate. This is a structure that will promote savings, therefore benefiting individual Americans, our body politic, and the economy.
At the end of the day our plan, while economic in nature, has a higher moral purpose. If entitlements are not reformed, the next generation and future ones will have to pay punitive tax rates that will end liberty as we have known it. Our proposal, which was funded by a grant initiative set up by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, aims to preserve America's promise bequeathed to us by past generations.
