In a letter to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Center for Individual Freedom strongly endorsed “The Path to Prosperity” 2012 budget resolution.

Read the letter below.  Or, download the letter here (.pdf).

April 13, 2011

The Honorable Paul Ryan
Chairman, Committee on the Budget
U.S. House of Representatives
1233 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C.  20515

Dear Chairman Ryan,

On behalf of the Center for Individual Freedom (“CFIF”) and its more than 300,000 activists and supporters nationwide, I write to offer our strong endorsement of “The Path to Prosperity” 2012 budget proposal presented last week by House Republicans.

As you have articulated time and again, the fiscal path down which the United States is headed is dangerous and unsustainable.  The current debt and spending crisis, left unchecked, will leave future generations of Americans worse off than their predecessors for the first time in our nation’s history.  Even worse, as former Senator Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles – the co-chairs of President Obama’s own deficit commission – have warned, unless something is done now to reverse course and ensure a more fiscally sustainable future, the crisis will quickly reach a tipping point from which the nation will not be able to recover.  

Yet too many in Washington, while claiming to understand the fiscal calamity before us, seek to preserve the status quo.  Some, including President Obama, are advocating policies that will accelerate America’s fiscal decline.  Instead of reining in reckless and unsustainable federal spending, they propose further expansion of government, even more deficit spending and massive tax increases that will grind U.S. economic growth to a halt. 

The Path to Prosperity 2012 budget proposal is a refreshingly bold and comprehensive plan to right the nation’s fiscal ship.  It fulfills the promise made to the American people to drastically cut federal spending by slashing more than $6 trillion from the president’s budget proposal over the next ten years – including repeal of ObamaCare.  It reduces spending to below 20 percent of GDP and pays off the national debt over time.  It takes the courageous and necessary step of advancing commonsense reforms to Medicare and Medicaid, two of the biggest drivers of the nation’s mounting debt, saving those programs from bankruptcy and empowering consumers, rather than government, to take charge of their healthcare security. And it significantly cuts taxes for individuals, businesses and families, which will promote entrepreneurship and spark prosperity and private-sector job growth.  

Not surprisingly, opponents of your proposal already are criticizing it as “extreme,”  “irresponsible” and worse.  But it’s their transparent attempt to score cheap political points at the expense of seriously addressing what has been described as the “most predictable crisis in history” that is irresponsible.  To maintain the current course or adopt as a “solution” policies that grow government even larger, double down on spending and grossly raise taxes, as a substantial portion of the House Democratic caucus is now promoting, will ensure complete fiscal disaster.

The Path to Prosperity blueprint is a serious solution to a very serious crisis.  It deserves serious and thoughtful consideration.  CFIF and its network of activists across the country stand ready to ensure that happens.

Thank you for your leadership. 

Sincerely,

/s/

Jeffrey Mazzella
President