Rethinking Afghanistan with Jonathan Bydlak
2020-01-02 · Guest: Jonathan Bidlack (Institute for Spending Reform) · 51:29
The financial costs of the Afghanistan war
Bob Zadek welcomes Jonathan Bydlak of the Institute for Spending Reform to discuss the staggering financial costs of the war in Afghanistan. They analyze how the conflict’s mission has shifted over two decades and the long-term economic consequences of such massive federal expenditures.
Topics: Government spending, Afghanistan War, national debt, defense budget, fiscal policy, Institute for Spending Reform Speakers: Bob Zadek (Host), Jonathan Bydlak (Guest)
Bob Zadek: You’re listening to the Bob Zadek Show, a full hour of libertarian discussion with the smartest guests on radio. Live, spontaneous, and thoughtful. It’s the show of ideas, not attitude. Now, your host, Bob Zadek.
The Cost of Out-of-Control Spending [00:00]
Bob Zadek: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Bob Zadek Show, the longest-running live libertarian talk radio show on all of radio. Thank you so much for listening this winter Sunday morning. We are on a spending binge never to have been seen before on this planet. Our country is spending so much money and getting so little to show for it. It is profoundly irrational.
The fact that spending is so out of control really makes you question the very structure of our government. How is this sustainable? And is there a point in which the chickens, as they say, will come home to roost, and something really horrible, unthinkable would happen? Or does this just go on and on and on, and things for the average American—if there is such a thing—get incrementally a little bit worse and a little bit worse, sort of like getting older, but nobody really notices it, and there will never be any payback for this spending binge that we are on?
It’s time to ask back one of our very favorite guests, Jonathan Bydlak. Jonathan is a spending guru. He’s also the enemy of out-of-control government spending. Jonathan is the director, the founder, the head of the Institute for Spending Reform. Aren’t those wonderful words? Spending reform. The Institute for Spending Reform is a nonprofit, nonpartisan—nonpartisan to be sure—private organization, which is dedicated to finding solutions to the escalating—and escalating it is—national debt. It produces lots of original insights, information, and data, which it presents to Congress.
Jonathan began his career in the financial services industry, the private sector. He was an investment analyst for one of the country’s largest hedge funds. He’s been in an advisory role for numerous political candidates, and he started his real political career working with Ron Paul in Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign. Jonathan is the expert to visit with when it comes to matters of out-of-control governmental spending. Jonathan understands how we got here, and he has a vision on how to get out of it. Jonathan, welcome to the show this morning.
Jonathan Bydlak: Thank you, Bob, for that amazing introduction.
Bob Zadek: Well, Jonathan, you’ve had an amazing life and a productive life, and you continue to labor in one of what has to be the most challenging nonprofit public sector jobs there could possibly be. Now, on the subject of spending, of course, the 800-pound gorilla—maybe even 8,000-pound gorilla, kind of scary—the 8,000-pound gorilla is, of course, defense spending. And the 8,000-pound gorilla in defense spending is the longest war in the history of the United States: the so-called war in Afghanistan.
And what’s interesting, even to call it a war is a misnomer because “war” has a very definite meaning. War requires a declaration of war by Congress and the president signing a bill acknowledging that we are at war. And we have no such thing. There never can be a peace. If we’re not at war with anybody special, with whom will we assemble on the decks of an aircraft carrier to sign the peace treaty? The answer is nobody special. So, Jonathan, tell us about the enormity of the money we have spent and continue to spend in Afghanistan. And how did we get here from a spending standpoint?
The Economic Impact of the Afghanistan War [06:30]
Jonathan Bydlak: Yeah, you know, I think when we think about the conflict in Afghanistan, we think about the lives lost and just the time. And we oftentimes forget the treasure that we’ve expended on that conflict. And, you know, there are—I mean, obviously, the entire War on Terror has cost massive amounts of money. But in Afghanistan specifically, the best estimates that we have is that in the last, you know, 18 to 19 years, we have spent nearly two and a half trillion dollars.
And you know, that includes not just direct costs on the fighting—the actual conflict—but you think about things like disability and healthcare for our veterans, which by the way, is not just something that stops when the conflict ends. It’s something that we will have to pay for years and years to come. And so, you know, and then you think about things like—take for example, we use these tanks and they get worn down, they get destroyed or what have you, and we have to replace them. That has huge costs too. So there’s all sorts of costs in terms of military readiness that this conflict has had, and I would argue has made it more difficult to actually have a strong national defense.
You mentioned at the beginning the defense budget, but it’s not really the defense budget that we’re talking about at this point. In many ways, we’re talking about the nation-building budget or maybe the offensive budget. So, you know, all of us want a strong national defense, but I think at this point, we accomplished what we intended to initially accomplish in Afghanistan, which was to strike back at those who struck us on 9/11. But the mission itself has morphed into something that is completely different than what we originally intended. And I don’t think the people who supported that conflict in 2001 would really have been supportive if they knew what Afghanistan would turn into.
And I’ll just add one other point, which is that if you read our own National Defense Strategy, what it says is that interstate competition—rather than a great power competition, rather than terrorism explicitly—is the biggest concern we have in the current geopolitical world. And Afghanistan really does not fit into the things that our own military is telling us are the biggest sort of defense challenges that we have as we press on in the 21st century. And so, for all of those reasons—not just the fiscal costs, but also just from a strategic standpoint—I think it makes sense to rethink our role there and ultimately work toward what the president has proposed, which is drawing down and ultimately leaving the country as soon as possible.
Bob Zadek: Now give us an idea—you have published lots of material telling us the extent of the spending. Tell us how much the war in Afghanistan has cost us in real dollars. What is the ongoing cost? And just if you can give us some idea of what that money could have purchased for us had it been spent elsewhere.
Jonathan Bydlak: Right. Well, I mean, if you look at since 2001 and you look at all of the spending that we have engaged in overseas, it’s basically been primarily in two places. And one of those is Afghanistan, and the other, of course, is in Iraq. And so out of all of the money that we’ve spent overseas since 2001 fighting these conflicts, roughly I think it’s 47% of that spending has been in Afghanistan and a little bit in Pakistan associated with that conflict.
So Afghanistan has been a huge part of what the military has been engaging in. And those costs, as I said earlier, some of that is the direct cost of the expenditure—the actual cost of fighting the war. But there are other things. The base budget, for example, ends up increasing as a result of these conflicts. You have interest that we ultimately have to pay on all of this spending to the degree that we’re borrowing to do so. You know, there’s things like increased Homeland Security spending. As I mentioned earlier, you’ve got medical and disability for our veterans, and those will continue. And then you have future—the longer we stay there, the more medical and disability sort of issues we’re going to have to pay for as a result of continued casualties.
So if you sort of sum all of that up, the direct costs in Afghanistan are roughly two trillion dollars. And when you add on all of those other obligations…
Bob Zadek: Now say that, Jonathan. You have to say that slowly with an emphasis on the “T.” Tell us again how much that has cost and give us some sense of other items in the budget and give us some idea of what we could have done with two trillion—with the “T”—dollars over the 18 years or such, 18 years plus, that we have been in Afghanistan.
Jonathan Bydlak: Well, you know, I’ll tell you this. When you talk about the enormity of the federal budget, we all know that our national debt is now over 26 trillion dollars. So that’s of course the other thing that we talk about where we typically use the T-word, if you will.
The discussion addresses the financial burden of the war in Afghanistan, suggesting that the resulting national debt is a significant security concern. The speakers reflect on how the mission has evolved from its original defensive goals into a long-term engagement that resembles a permanent government program. They also explore the difficulty of ending a conflict that is fought against a concept like terrorism rather than a specific nation, noting that such wars lack traditional endings like formal treaties. Ultimately, they suggest that the conclusion of the conflict must be a political decision made at home rather than a victory achieved on a traditional battlefield.
Would you like a summary of the next segment of this episode?
Nation Building and the Vietnam Example [21:26]
Jonathan Bydlak: I would argue that the answer to that is no, that there are plenty of places in the world that have very difficult political situations that they are dealing with, and it’s not the obligation of the United States to be engaged—and certainly not the United States military, which, as phenomenal as they are, people don’t join the military to engage in nation-building endeavors. They join the military to ultimately protect the citizens of the United States. I think we’ve lost sight of that a little bit.
To me, that is at the—I mean, I think it’s important to look for as much of a solution and create a situation on the ground in Afghanistan that is as good and as positive a situation as we possibly can. But that shouldn’t ultimately be the only thing necessary. We shouldn’t have to say, “Until things are perfect, we’re not leaving,” because the reality is things will never be perfect, and then we will never leave.
To me, I look at Vietnam in many ways as the operative example. The conflict in Vietnam was a very hard-fought conflict. Perhaps in many ways the outcome was not what the United States wanted to see, but we left regardless. If you look at the relationship between the United States and Vietnam now, what, 40-something years later, we trade with Vietnam. Their economy is doing very well. They’re in a much different situation, I would argue, than if we were there 45 years later still with troops on the ground.
I certainly understand that there are differences in Afghanistan that may prevent that outcome from ultimately happening. But I think it’s instructive to realize that the idea that we can spread our values simply at the point of a gun is very flawed. Actually, sometimes engaging in these sort of soft power techniques, we end up having better outcomes. I think that in the long term for the Afghani people, they’re much more likely to be better off if they can figure this out on their own. That doesn’t mean that we have to go and abandon them or be seen as being isolationist. I don’t think that’s the case at all. But that also doesn’t mean that we have to have troops on the ground there in perpetuity.
Bob Zadek: As we go to break, Jonathan, you made reference to the Afghani people. Frankly, Jonathan, I don’t really care that much about the Afghani people, what they think, or what’s best for them. That is the point. What’s best for the Afghani people is not relevant. It’s what’s best for Americans. It is our money.
As we go to break, Jonathan, I would just ask our audience to remember that the memory of presidents Johnson and Kennedy is tarnished by starting and prosecuting the war in Vietnam. The memory of Nixon, tarnished though it may be, obviously one of the bright spots was he ended the war in Vietnam. Nixon is not thought of as the president who surrendered, who disgraced us. He ended the war, and that is a positive attribute. So President Trump, or President whoever is next, remember: You will be remembered favorably in history if all you do is end the war or wars in the Middle East.
This is Bob Zadek. We’re spending a wonderful morning talking with Jonathan Bydlak. Jonathan is the director and the creator of the Institute to Reduce Spending. Jonathan spends every day of his life—unfortunately for him, but fortunately for us—laboring in the halls of Congress to try to get Congress to reduce spending. Jonathan will share his intimate and interesting firsthand experiences dealing with Congress and getting them to reduce spending when we come back after a very short break. Please stay tuned.
The Spending Tracker and Congressional Accountability [27:12]
Bob Zadek: Welcome back to The Bob Zadek Show, the longest-running live libertarian talk radio show on all of radio. The show always of ideas, never ever, not once, the show of attitude. Thanks so much for listening to our conversation this morning with Jonathan Bydlak. Jonathan is the director and the creator of the Institute for Spending Reform. Jonathan spends his time on the ground in the halls of Congress educating our elected officials on the cancerous, negative effect of excessive spending. Jonathan has been remarkably successful in this terribly strenuous, hard uphill battle.
Jonathan, you spend your time in Congress and you have built a tool, a wonderful tool to help voters influence their elected officials: the Spending Tracker. Jonathan, tell us about the Spending Tracker and what that tool does and how it helps our listeners and the American public become far more informed when they cast their ballot every fall.
Jonathan Bydlak: Sure. One of the things that I’ve learned through doing the work that I do is that there’s often a disconnect between what people see happening in Washington and who they think is to blame. I’ve had many conversations with people who say, “I don’t like this new legislation that passed,” or what have you, “but my member of Congress isn’t the problem. It’s everyone else’s member of Congress.” I think a lot of times people don’t have clarity on what the record of their individual members are.
With Spending Tracker, we built a tool that essentially does just that. It simply takes all of the votes that your members of Congress are taking and it cross-references them with what the costs of all of that legislation are, so that you can go in and you can see, “Okay, my member of Congress or another member of Congress has spent however many billions—or in some cases trillions—of dollars.” You can look at the itemized breakdown of what exactly they were voting for and decide for yourself whether or not that’s a record that you support.
In a way, it’s creating a report card for members of Congress. You may decide that you’re okay with some kinds of spending but not okay with others, but the important thing is that everyone has access to that information in a very radically transparent way. That’s what we’ve sought to do. This has been a labor of love for us for almost five years now. It’s a very, very powerful tool because there’s nothing else like it that allows you to see not just how people are voting, but what the implications of those votes are from a fiscal standpoint.
Bob Zadek: How does the American public access Spending Tracker?
Jonathan Bydlak: The website is spendingtracker.org. If you go to that website, you can basically just punch in your zip code or view the rankings if you like. If you type in your zip code, it’ll bring you right to your member of Congress or your senators. It’s a really great, simple-to-use site. So, it’s just spendingtracker.org.
Bob Zadek: Now, you spend your days—unfortunately for you, fortunately for the rest of us—in the halls of Congress, interacting with members of the House and, I suspect, members of the Senate as well. How much actual discretion does an individual member of the House have? We have had earlier shows discussing the dysfunctional nature of the structure of the House of Representatives and the Senate. On the ground, assuming you have a tight-fisted, cheap son of a gun who doesn’t want to spend money, how much can that individual member of Congress actually say, “I am not voting for this. It’s too expensive. I do not support it”?
The Power of Individual Members [31:55]
Bob Zadek: Tell us what you have experienced in terms of the actual power an individual voting member of Congress has. Or is Congress so dysfunctional that members simply have no vote? They are just cattle, or whatever mammal you want to use as an analogy, driven by the whip hand of the leadership.
Jonathan Bydlak: Yeah. Yeah, that’s—that’s a—an interesting question. I think, you know, I mean, first of all, every member is ultimately free to vote however they wish. And so, you know, some members—unfortunately, perhaps not as many as we might like, you know—take a pretty principled vote on every—every single bill that comes up before them. And—and so, you know, but of course many do not. And I think that the—you know, your original question was, you know, I think, how much power really does every individual member of Congress have? And—and the answer is actually not as much as you might think. I mean, at a basic level, you know, any one Congressman is only one out of 435 in the House, or, you know, each Senator is only one out of a hundred in the Senate. So, you know, by virtue of that, their—their power is somewhat limited.
But I think the other component here is just sort of the power dynamic that exists, uh, between, you know, the—the party infrastructure and—and the committee infrastructure. And so, you know, oftentimes the—the—the party that is in power, they want to put people in positions, uh, in—in certain, you know, in the powerful committees that are going to ultimately vote and shepherd through legislation to their liking. And so they look for, uh, uniformity. They look for, uh, people who, you know, aren’t necessarily going to go and, uh—uh, and—and always take the most principled votes. And I—and I don’t mean to say that, of course, this is true of—of every member of Congress. I’m—I’m sort of painting in broad strokes. But I think that—I think that there’s definitely an incentive structure in place where members are ultimately encouraged not to always vote their conscience, but to ultimately vote for those things that—that party leadership wants.
And of course, why does party leadership want certain things? Well, there are certain interests on each side of the aisle that, uh, you know, that lobby for a certain perspective. And, uh, you know, uh, because government does so much, we have so many people who go to Washington to lobby, because if you don’t, you’re basically left behind. And so, um, you know, we—all of that is to say that, you know, the—the ability of any individual member to really radically change the system, uh, is—is actually much more limited, I think, than a lot of—a lot of, you know, sort of, uh, the general public, you know, is led to believe.
And in the—since we have so many safe seats in the House—not, of course, in the Senate, but in the House—as a result of gerrymandering, only about two or three percent, uh, across the board in the House seats are really competitive seats. That means that all of the battles are at the primary, not in the general election. The general elections of the race is predictable, but not in the primaries. And in the primaries, I don’t recall ever seeing a primary battle on either party—not that I would hear about it necessarily, but I look—I don’t recall ever seeing a primary battle where it was a free spender versus a more parsimonious, um, candidate for office who run—who has run on the platform and won. “I am running on a platform of reducing spending.” It doesn’t seem to be an issue that gets congressmen or would-be congressmen elected. And if they do get elected, it doesn’t seem to be a position that helps them rise up in the party infrastructure. Indeed, the opposite may be true. Is that a fair observation, or am I too pessimistic?
Fiscal Responsibility and Public Engagement [38:45]
Jonathan Bydlak: I think—uh, I think the—the second part of what you just said is generally true, which is that it—it is a oftentimes a difficult issue to—to help you rise within the party infrastructure. And the reason is that, you know, you benefit by delivering—delivering the goods, delivering the bacon, not just to—to your voters, but also to, uh, your donors and other sort of interests who, um, you know, are—are have an interest in what the government is doing. And again—again, I—I paint here in broad strokes, and I hesitate to do that too much because I think there are—there are members who—who do generally vote—vote their conscience. But that is a—that is definitely a phenomenon that exists.
I mean, there definitely have been many races. I mean, if you look back, for example, you know, during the Tea Party wave, which, uh, you know, regardless of your listeners’ particular feelings about the Tea Party, there was definitely a strong component, a strong, uh—uh, segment of the population, at least at that time, that was increasingly concerned about the national debt. They were concerned about, uh, growth in government and growth spending. And so I, you know, I do think there have been a lot of races where that has been a factor. I mean, if you think about Rand Paul, for example, in Kentucky, uh, when Rand Paul first ran for the—ran for the Senate in—in 2010, uh, you know, he sort of rode the coattails of the Tea Party wave, and—and one of the major distinguishing characteristics between, you know, uh—uh—uh, Senator Paul and his—his opponent at the time was—was sort of views on growth in government.
I think one of the challenges that a lot of members have is that for those who do actually, uh, care about this issue, um, it’s oftentimes hard to distinguish yourself because everybody pays lip service even if they don’t actually follow through. And so, you know, that of course is a big part of the motivating factor behind, uh, Spending Tracker, because it allows you to sort of see who walks the walk and doesn’t just talk the talk. But historically, that’s been one of the challenges is that those members who do, you know, talk about this issue, uh, end up, I think, struggling a little bit to really show how they’re—how they’re different from their opponents because, uh, you know, people who are inclined to vote for big spending oftentimes use more limited government, uh, rhetoric.
Bob Zadek: So therefore it is up to us, the voters, to indicate that one of the criteria we use in voting in primaries or in generals is the policy on spending. Now we have a caller, uh, who’s been waiting on hold patiently, I presume, for a while. Uh, Michael, good morning. Welcome to the show.
Michael: Oh, good morning, Bob. Good morning, Jonathan. Um, I wanted to, uh, tell you I really appreciate you having this show. I think it’s very, very important message to get out. And in that service, I was wondering, Bob, if you have, uh, podcasts for your shows or YouTube channel. And if not, do you think that’s something that would be useful?
Bob Zadek: Thank you for asking, Michael. I do have, uh, believe it or not, every one of my 550 shows is collected for all time in a podcast. It’s—you can find the podcast on iTunes and Stitcher Radio, anywhere that you use for your iPod feeds. And you can listen if you have—you find yourself on a long line at DMV and you have 550 hours or so to kill, you can just play old shows going back to my very first show in 2010, I think. And my very first guest on my very first show was Ward Connerly, as I recall. Uh, we were talking then about the issue, uh, of California’s, uh, Prop 209, uh, which, uh, forbid the use of racial, uh, criteria, um, in—in California’s state contracting and in admissions, uh, to the California university system.
So yes, Michael, thank you for asking. Thank you for, uh, giving me an opportunity to mention the podcast. But they’re all there, and some of the older podcasts are interesting because they give us, um, if—if there was something important during the week, it’s on one of my shows. And if you want to relive political life of the last decade, just listen to my old shows; you’ll enjoy them. Michael, thank you so much for your kind words and for giving me a chance of the podcast.
Michael: Sorry, what is the—it’ll confuse you.
Bob Zadek: It’s called The Bob Zadek Show. It’s very deceptive.
Michael: Yeah. And what about putting it on a YouTube channel also for wider distribution?
Bob Zadek: I—I could do that. I’ll mention that to my producer. In fact, my producer’s probably listening and we’ll do it. So Michael, give me a day or so and we’ll have it up and running for you. Thanks so much for calling and thanks to giving me a chance to mention the podcast.
Michael: Thanks for the show.
Bob Zadek: Now Jonathan—uh, thank you, uh, Michael—Jonathan, um, when you, um, promote, encourage, uh, members of Congress to pay attention to spending, uh, what has been their receptivity to your message? And what do you hear from them in exchange—those who are sympathetic to your message, or those who, uh, do not support your point of view? What has been, uh, anecdotally, some of the responses you have gotten from members of Congress?
Jonathan Bydlak: Yeah, it’s a—it’s a great question. Well, I’ll—I’ll tell you this to start with. You know, I—I actually saw some polling data recently that was—this was about Republican voters.
The Political Challenge of Spending Reform [42:18]
Jonathan Bydlak: And if you—if you can believe it—the issue that actually polled the highest right now among Republican voters was the issue of reducing spending. There are a lot of—at least on the Republican side—there is a lot of concern about the increases in the national debt. There’s a lot of concern about growth in government, and that consistently is the issue that has the highest level of support. Now, it doesn’t always necessarily evoke, you know, the most passion compared to maybe some other hot-button issues. And I think that that’s often the challenge about talking about dollars and cents, not just with the broader public, but with members of Congress as well, is that, you know, they’re oftentimes looking for those issues that are going to get them the attention, and sometimes just talking about dollars and cents doesn’t necessarily get them that attention.
So I think, you know, I think most members of Congress want to do the right thing. They may have disagreements on what the right thing ultimately should be, but you know, I think most members are in it for good reasons. The problem is that—well, there are a number of problems. One is that, you know, government does so much today that it’s very difficult for every member of Congress to be an expert in every little thing that the government does. So, you know, there may be certain members who come from an agricultural background, and so they understand those issues instinctively, or there may be some who served in the military, and so they’re more inclined to understand the nuances that are happening in Afghanistan or other parts of the world. But it’s pretty much impossible for any one person to be an expert in all of these issues.
And I can tell you, I mean, I certainly try. I always joke that, you know, we work on one issue—spending—but the reality is that spending touches everything, so really we’re in every issue group. But I think that that is a big part of the challenge. And so, as a consequence of that, what a lot of members feel compelled to do is to rely on shortcuts, basically, which is: what does the party leadership tell me to do, or what do I think is most politically expedient for me to do? Not necessarily—you know, they’re not, unfortunately, always paid to sort of, “Well, I’m going to do some research and get back to you on that,” or say, “I don’t know,” or sort of rely on others who are close to them to become experts on these issues.
And so that is what I see the most with members is that it’s very difficult to be an expert on all of these issues. And a lot of times I think that those who are outside of DC think that members are taking bad votes for these sort of nefarious reasons, but a lot of times it’s just born out of not knowing about certain things because it’s not really possible to know about all of the things that they’re voting on, and certainly not necessarily in the timeframe that they have to review legislation. And so that, I think, is the biggest challenge that faces members, and I think it’s why it’s so important not just for groups like mine, but also for the average citizen to be talking with and educating their own elected officials on the issues that are important. And, you know, of course, I would argue that fiscal issues certainly—there are few issues that are as important.
Bob Zadek: And of course, every pressure group, every lobbying group, they all have their issue that they press very hard for. So farmers are very unlikely to vote against farm subsidies. Now, farm subsidies is an important issue. Many farmers don’t like them, but many do. But the point I’m trying to make is I think back to a very interesting, in so many ways, item—piece of federal legislation. It was called, as I recall, the Base Closure Act. And the environment for the Base Closure Act was our country reached a point that we had many, much too many military bases that were not needed or underutilized and were very expensive, besides occupying a lot of land. And every congressman loves the bases in their district, and they would never—like post offices—they would never vote to close their post office or their military base.
Congress, in recognition of their own frailty and political inability to close military bases, enacted an effective piece of legislation called the Base Closure Act, where they appointed an independent commission—so nobody in Congress can be yelled at—who would recommend bases to be closed based upon somewhat objective criteria of cost-benefit analysis, and Congress would be given the list and they could vote up or down on the whole list. And the Base Closure Commission did their work objectively, apolitically, Congress voted for the recommendations, and the bases were closed.
And the point being, certain issues, it’s just naive to expect Congress to act against their clear self-interest. So you appoint an independent commission. To make my point is that—remember when we had Obama and the Hill couldn’t reach agreement on spending, and rather than close down the government, they cut back all federal spending across the board by the same percentage. And that was the only time in our history that the budget deficit went down, and it was done arbitrarily and across the board.
Jonathan, that to me is the only way to reduce spending, and without having a member of Congress feel they are getting yelled at by their particular district or pressure group, they are off the hook. Will anything like that work? Is it being discussed to get the political process free from the downside of reducing spending? And if that doesn’t work, what are your opinions as we reach, unfortunately, the end of our time? What about the constantly hitting the public discussion, which is a Balanced Budget Amendment?
Jonathan Bydlak: I think the way of summarizing that is that the rules matter. The rules in which members of Congress operate are very important. I think that both sides make a mistake where they assume that if we just elect a couple of better people, it’s going to change things. And the reality is that, you know, members of Congress are political creatures; they operate within a certain infrastructure. And so that is something that is ultimately very important.
I think, you know, the Balanced Budget Amendment conceptually makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, the way that it has been proposed on a number of cases—it’s one of those issues where we don’t necessarily have the time right now, but the devil really is in the details in terms of how you do that effectively. But there are examples. I mean, in the state of Colorado, for example, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights is—has been the most effective tax and expenditure limitation that has been enacted. It would be fantastic if we had something like that at the federal level. There are unique challenges at the federal level because that would essentially have to be imposed by a constitutional amendment, which many people are working on, but that creates a very high bar.
If you look at other countries as another example beyond the states, places like Switzerland and Sweden—there is sort of this myth that Sweden is this socialist country, but actually they have very stringent expenditure limitations that restrict how much their government can pay, which, by the way, those were implemented in the 1990s when they faced the entitlement crisis.
Bob Zadek: We have to interrupt; we’re going to be cut off. Please support Jonathan’s organization, the Institute for Spending Reform. It is the secret of reducing federal spending. Jonathan is doing great work. He can use all your help. Jonathan, thank you so much for the hour of your time. And please have a good rest of the Sunday and hope the contributions flow into the Institute.
Jonathan Bydlak: Thank you so much, Bob. Yeah, visit spendingreform.org and spendingtracker.org to learn more about us.