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Three Ideas from Europe for Controlling Government Spending

Saturday May 19th, 2012   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 8:21am PDT   •   4 Comments

What steps might fiscally responsible politicians follow to get a grip on an out-of-control spending problem? Here’s a list of ideas from around the world:

France: Cut the pay of top government officials by 30%. In the U.S., they could save a lot more by also cutting their excessively generous benefits by at least that amount too!

Switzerland: Apply a “debt brake“! Constitutionally limit the growth of spending by the federal government to the average rate of growth of tax collections.

Sweden: Automatically cut social spending when tax revenues fall. That way, the amount the government spends on things like health care and college education stays linked to the ability of the taxpayers to pay for them, which has the benefit of making sure they stay affordable.

The funny thing: all three ideas come from countries that have strongly socialist economies!

Featured Image:
Source: NASA


4 Responses to “Three Ideas from Europe for Controlling Government Spending”

  1. Xaun says:
    May 21, 2012 at 1:17 pm

    Austrian economists.

  2. bob Marshall says:
    May 21, 2012 at 8:32 pm

    These seem like sensible idea. How much longer before the weakling U.S crashes. Only with the Fed printing money out of thin air is America being kept afloat but that will last only so long before other countries ditch the U.S. dollar. It is already happening in some countries. While the IMF and the World bank place third word countries in debt the Federal Reserve with their policies does the same to America.

  3. Jerome Bigge says:
    May 21, 2012 at 9:14 pm

    One major difference between Europe and the US is the far greater amount of money the US spends on “defense” compared to that of any other country on Earth. The US is spending close to “half” of all the money spent the world over on “defense” despite the fact we are only 5% of the world’s population. Something to think about here. As Ron Paul has pointed out, we maintain military bases in 130 nations. No other country in the world does this except for the USA. Why do we think we have to be the “world’s policeman”? Because of this we have created enemies all over the world. We have encouraged countries such as Iran to develop nuclear weapons because this is the only weapon that will “deter” the USA. We have become the world’s “bully”, and bullies are never popular or well liked. Is the sort of country we should be?

  4. timothy dall says:
    May 25, 2012 at 3:54 pm

    If it wasn’t for our presence countries like S. Korea would be attacked by N. Korea, Tawain would be taken by China, Israel would be a greater threat if they even existed anymore. During the 70s-90-s the Soviet Union would have spread further throughout western Europe. I do agree, our presence in some areas are not needed anymore (nor wanted). Shut those down who don’t want us there such as Germany which would save some money. Stop providing the defense for numerous European nations and let them do it for themselves, cut out of NATO and the U.N. and look out for our interests.

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