There are rumors floating around that former Senator Phil Gramm might replace John Snow as Secretary of the Treasury. Gramm would be an absolutely ideal choice, as he has a reputation for being a true fiscal conservatism. He was responsible for the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Budget Act, which was one of the few points in the history of this country where the Congress had some semblance of financial sanity. Common-sense budgeting rules like Gramm-Rudman-Hollings have sadly become passé in our nation’s Capitol, but having someone who knows a thing or two about keeping the federal budget under control would be a breath of badly-needed fresh air.
Hopefully this is a sign that the Bush Administration is serious about getting America’s fiscal house in order. Fiscal conservatives have had some things to be glad about in the first four years of George W. Bush, but his seeming unwillingness to control federal spending has not helped him one iota. The Medicare prescription drug benefit, steel tariffs, and out-of-control spending have marred Bush’s fiscal conservative streed cred. Appointing Gramm to the Secretary of the Treasury position would be one way that Bush could signal that he’s learned from some of his economic mistakes in the last four years.
Not a bad choice, all things considered.
What an outstanding pick! There just aren’t enough free-market ideologues from Texas in the Bush administration. Back in 2001 when he was still in the Senate, Gramm was a major critic of Bush’s budget-busting $1.3 trillion tax cut….because it didn’t cut taxes enough. If only Bush and the rest of Congress had listened to Gramm and doubled the size of the tax cut, we wouldn’t be saddling future generations with this too-small $8 trillion debt…we would be able to raise our national debt limit by $2 trillion per year rather than settling for a paltry $1 trillion annual increase in debt capacity. Hopefully with Gramm behind the wheel, Bush can get the kind of advice he needs to successfully grow this tiny debt and expand tax relief to those long-suffering millionaires. Certainly, this is a sign that Bush has learned from his past economic mistakes. The defunding of the federal government can now move forward with the accelerated pace that Milton Friedman intended when he first devised his “starve the beast” theory. We simply can’t wait for the Baby Boomers to start retiring by the thousands before we bankrupt government.