The 12 Step Program To Breaking Washington’s Spending Addiction

Just recently, President Obama told Speaker John Boehner, “We don’t have a spending problem.”

Well, as we all know of course, the first sign of addiction is— DENIAL!

Washington is clearly addicted to spending. We are not over $16 trillion in debt because the government taxes “the rich” too little— we are in debt because the government spends WAY too much money. Quite frankly, Washington’s HUGE spending addiction is stealing from our children and grandchildren.

Last weekend, I had the privilege of attending South Carolina’s Tea Party Coalition Convention in Myrtle Beach, SC. At the convention, SC Congressman Jeff Duncan, brilliantly borrowed from Alcoholics Anonymous and proposed a twelve-step program to breaking Washington’s spending addiction.

Here is Duncan’s Twelve-step Program to Recover from Washington’s Spending Addiction:

1. Admit that Washington has become powerless to stop spending money, and that the problem has become unmanageable.
2. Believe that it is possible to restore our country’s fiscal sanity.
3. Make the decision to force government to live within it means.
4. Create an assessment of the debts and burdens that government has already placed on our children and grandchildren.
5. Confess to the American people that the debt resulting from our spending addiction is the single greatest economic and national security threat to the United States.
6. Be willing to make the tough decisions needed to address the drivers of our debt and deficit.
7. Humbly adopt structural reforms like a Balanced Budget Amendment to end our country’s fiscal shortcomings.
8. Apologize to the generations of Americans who have been negatively impacted by our country’s spending practices, and make amends by fundamentally altering our spending behavior.
9. Eliminate federal spending, except where doing so would be contrary to the wisdom of our Founding Fathers.
10. Continue cutting spending, and quickly hold others accountable when they tempt us into readopting reckless fiscal policy.
11. Seek to improve our understanding of the limited Constitutional roles of government and sound monetary policy through education.
12. Having experienced an awakening of common sense as a result of these steps, carry this message to state and local governments, so that they too may become better stewards of taxpayer dollars.

It’s blatantly obvious that Washington is in dire need of an “intervention” by the American people. With the upcoming debates about raising the debt ceiling, this may be an opportune time for us to introduce this 12 Step Program to our representatives. Otherwise, they will continue their addiction and keep “kicking the can” further down the road.