As National Debt Tops $40 Trillion, Watchdog Unveils $10 Trillion Spending Cut Blueprint

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Kara Zupkus (224) 456-0257

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) released Cutting the Tab: 40 Ways to Reduce America’s Debt, a new report outlining 40 targeted reforms to rein in federal spending after the national debt surpassed $40 trillion in early September. TPA identifies reforms across some of the federal government’s largest and most expensive budget items—including Agriculture, Defense, Medicaid, Medicare, Transportation, Social Security, and the federal workforce—with stand-alone ten-year savings estimates totaling more than $10 trillion.

Among the report’s largest savings proposals: 

• Replacing open-ended Medicaid matching with a zero-growth block grant, with a ten-year savings of $5 trillion.
• Reinstating and extending binding caps on non-defense discretionary spending, with a ten-year savings of $1.3 trillion.
• Phasing out federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding and returning food assistance to the states, with a ten-year savings of $550 billion.

TPA Executive Director Ross Marchand issued the following statement:

“It took roughly 205 years after the nation’s founding for the United States to accumulate its first $1 trillion in federal debt. Less than 45 years later, it has added another $39 trillion. The federal government now owes the equivalent of roughly $117,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country.

“A $40 trillion national debt is a disquieting milestone along Washington’s decades-long reckless fiscal path, one reached by consistently spending beyond taxpayers’ means. The consequences of Washington’s abandonment of responsible budgeting are increasingly difficult to dismiss. Taxpayers will spend more than $1 trillion this year merely servicing the debt, all while the government continues to add trillions of dollars more to the debt that future generations will be forced to finance.

“Suppressed economic growth, distorted and inefficient credit markets, and the displacement of private capital by profligate government borrowing are less quantifiable but no less dire ramifications of the government’s indebtedness. Congress and the administration should treat this debt milestone for what it is: a warning that, should the government persist down its present path, a fiscal crisis awaits at the destination.

“Cutting the Tab shows that substantial savings are possible if the nation’s leaders reassert their commitment to responsible governance and confront the programs that fuel federal spending. That means reforming the major entitlements, restraining discretionary spending, returning responsibilities that properly belong to the states, and eliminating subsidies and programs that taxpayers should not be financing in the first place. The report’s 40 recommendations saving $10 trillion provide a menu of options for exactly that––with savings ranging from billions to trillions of dollars depending on which reforms policymakers pursue and how many they ultimately enact. TPA urges Congress and the Trump administration to reassume responsibility for sound budgeting, reform bloated programs, and reverse America’s course toward a fiscal crisis.”

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 Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis and dissemination of information on the government’s effects on the economy.