Over at Downsizing the Federal Government, Chris Edwards has released an updated version of his “Plan to Cut Spending and Balance the Federal Budget.” The plan proposes spending cuts of more than $1 trillion annually by 2021, which would balance the budget without resorting to damaging tax increases. Federal spending would be reduced to 18 percent of gross domestic product by 2021 under the plan, which compares to President Obama’s projected spending that year of 24.2 percent of GDP.

Some key points:

• No sacred cows are spared. Defense, domestic, and so-called entitlement programs are all cut.

• The plan recognizes that the scope of federal activities must be curtailed. It would begin the reversal of decades of federal expansion into hundreds of areas that should be left to state and local governments, businesses, charities, and individuals.

• Instead of viewing federal spending cuts as a necessary evil, the plan recognizes that the cuts would shift resources from often mismanaged and damaging government programs to the more productive private sector, thus increasing overall GDP.

• The plan doesn’t achieve budget balance by increasing taxes. Under current tax policy, federal revenues as a share of GDP will gradually return to levels considered normal in recent decades. It is federal spending that has reached abnormally high levels. It must be reduced in order to get the government’s spiraling debt under control.

Updated Cato Budget Plan is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

What do automobiles and  American founding principles have in common?

At a Cato forum Tuesday, P.J. O’Rourke, author of the new book Driving Like Crazy, said well, plenty.

“Cars fulfilled the Americans’ founding fathers’ dream and ideal,” said O’Rourke. “Of all the truths that we hold to be self evident, of all the  unalienable rights with which we are endowed, what is the most important to the American dream? It is right there, front and center…freedom to leave…freedom to get the hell out of town.”

Indeed, the American automobile as many have known it is fading fast. After years of government incentives to build certain types of cars, tax credits to buy smaller ones, higher gasoline tax proposals, and the government takeover of General Motors, the cars that so represented American freedom and individualism won’t last long, he said.

“Pity the poor American car when Congress and the White House get through with it,” he said.  “A light-weight vehicle with a small carbon footprint using alternative energy and renewable resources to operate in a sustainable way– When I was a kid, we called it a Schwinn.”

O’Rourke said that going after the automobile is just a way for bureaucrats in Washington to take control over another part of Americans’ lives.

“I’m old enough to realize that freedom is always under attack,” he said. “This is a never ending struggle.”

You can watch his entire speech, or listen in on a Cato special podcast below.

Photo credit: Kelly Anne Creazzo

P.J. O’Rourke, Driving Like Crazy is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog