Perdue Proposes Overhaul of Washington’s Funding Process

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Sen. Perdue pushing overhaul of federal appropriations process
By Dave Williams, Atlanta Business Chronicle
November 27, 2018

U.S. Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., and two of his Republican colleagues are calling on Congress to reform the appropriations process to make sure the federal government is funded on time.

Perdue and GOP Sens. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Joni Ernst of Iowa are introducing a plan to create specific deadlines for passing annual budget and appropriations bills. The proposal will be taken up by a bicameral, bipartisan committee formed last February to review the process and recommend changes.

“Washington is locked in a cycle of continuing resolutions and last-minute spending deals,” Perdue said. “To be successful, this joint select committee must create a politically neutral platform with specific milestones for completing funding and impose severe consequences if members of Congress don’t get the job done.”

Lawmakers returned to Washington this week for a two-week lame-duck session needing to reach a funding agreement with the White House by Dec. 7 or face a partial government shutdown. The key sticking point is President Donald Trump’s request for $5 billion for a border wall.

The 16-member Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform, which includes Perdue, has until the end of the year to agree on changes to the process and present them to the full Congress for a vote.

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David Perdue Slams ‘Unacceptable’ Short-Term Spending Bill

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Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) slammed the Senate’s “unacceptable” short-term continuing resolution (CR) on Tuesday. The CR would prevent President Donald Trump’s potential shutdown threat over partial border wall funding.

The Senate passed the continuing resolution with a vote tally of 93-7. Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), David Perdue (R-GA), and Pat Toomey (R-PA) joined Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to vote against the $854 billion spending bill.

Sen. Perdue chided the CR in a statement on Tuesday, saying:

Here we go again. In typical Washington fashion, Congress has once again fallen short of completing its Constitutional responsibility. We had the opportunity to fully fund the government on time for the first time in 22 years. Congress has used over 180 continuing resolutions instead of getting it all done. We are going to walk past the deadline on September 30th and fall into the same trap. This is unacceptable.

Read more in Breitbart.

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Sen. David Perdue & Jenny Beth Martin: Make Congress Work Again

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“I say to Congress: I will never sign another bill like this again.”

President Trump made this crystal clear following the massive, last-minute funding bill in March, and he is serious. However, Congress has not gotten the message.

Several weeks have passed since the president issued this warning, and Washington is still spiraling towards another 11th-hour spending battle. We can see it clear as day, but many career politicians cannot.

Action must be taken immediately to overcome the following obstacles.

First, obstruction. Senate Democrats are waging an historic campaign to keep Trump from getting his full team in place. It takes an average of 82 days for one of Trump’s nominees to be confirmed. At this rate, he will not have his full team in place before the end of his first term. There are more than 250 nominees waiting to be confirmed today.

Most of Trump’s nominees are ultimately confirmed with bipartisan support, so this is not about real controversy or debate. Democrats are doing this to create a backlog and waste time to keep the Senate from focusing on Trump’s agenda.

Second, time. Twelve funding bills are required to fund the federal government. Congress has not even passed one yet this year. The fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. The Senate has just 62 working days between now and then. There are just 37 working days if you exclude Mondays and Fridays, and that is the norm in Congress.

Time is running out. If Congress does not act now, the obstruction will continue and Washington will continue the cycle of continuing resolutions to keep the lights on, while a handful of politicians get in a room and decide how to spend another trillion dollars.

This should not happen, and we can make sure it doesn’t.

Read more in The Washington Examiner.

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Our Opportunity To Change Washington’s Broken Budget Process

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The current budget process used by Congress will never work. Enacted in 1974, it was only worked the way it was intended four times in the past 44 years. As a result, our national debt has surpassed $20 trillion and is on track to grow another $10 trillion in the next decade.

Changing this failed budget process will not solve the national debt crisis, but we will not solve the debt crisis until we change the broken budget process. The plan the United States Senate passed today finally takes a real step towards doing so by establishing a committee that will work to change the budget process. This is our opportunity to finally get this done.

I’ve called for changing this broken budget process for years, and I’m not alone. Republicans and Democrats agree:  

Senator Steve Daines (R-MT): “The biggest hurdle to balancing the budget are the very rules, the very process that guides this institution. They are broken…We came here not to accept the status quo but to reject it, and to change the way this country operates truly to save the future of our kids and our grandkids.”

Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD): “We have to begin the process of fixing this broken [budget] system and we need to begin now. In 2026, our country turns 250 years old. Wouldn’t it be a marvelous goal if by that time we not only had this process fixed, but it was actually working once again?”

Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA): “We can’t keep spending money we don’t have on things that aren’t necessary. Washington can’t even do the basic business of balancing our own budget…It might just take a complete overhaul of Washington’s ways to help us solve this problem.” 

Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE): “Washington’s budget process is broken and everyone in Nebraska knows it. This has to change or there’s always going to be another cliff, another countdown, and another Washington-driven crisis.”

Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA): “Congress should also pass a fiscally responsible budget with a number of important reforms to the disastrous budget process.”

Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK): “A lot of us ran for office – a lot of us for the first time – because we saw what is going on with this budget process…We have all been working on this for months this is what we need to do to finally get ahold of these enormous budget challenges. I want to encourage all of my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, to join in this process to bring your ideas to fix what is clearly a broken process.”

Senator John Thune (R-SD): “Congress has the constitutional responsibility to fund the government, and when it comes to the current congressional budget process, I’m not a fan. It’s broken, and it needs to be reformed.”

Senator Bob Corker (R-TN): “We really don’t have a budget process. I mean to even call what we do a budget, per most human beings’ understanding of what a budget is, is obviously not realistic…We have to, in essence, get a process in place that actually works. It’s impossible for the process we have today to work. Today, is a perfect example of that, right?”

Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY): “I don’t get invited many places to speak because I talk about the budget process and it depresses people. But it’s about time that we got depressed over the budget and got some changes.”

Senator James Lankford (R-OK): “The budget process is out of control and must be dramatically reformed. Agencies cannot plan, business leaders cannot forecast expenses for the next year and the economy is grinding to a halt. To achieve a better budget product, we must have a better budget process.”

Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): “Only four times in the past 43 years has this budget process actually funded the federal government. Finding common ground to develop a real budget should be a bipartisan effort, and that’s why we’re fighting to fix it.”

Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA): “It’s clear that Congress’ current budgeting and appropriations process is broken.”

Senator Angus King (I-ME): “For 20 years, Congress hasn’t had a budget on time. Instead, we’ve opted to kick difficult decisions a little bit further down the road through continuing resolutions, leaving important priorities unfinished.”

Senator Gary Peters (D-MI): “Our broken budget process needlessly shortchanges the effectiveness of federal programs through a never-ending cycle of short-term continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills that create budget crises and keep the Government perpetually at the edge of a shutdown.”

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD): “Going from C.R. to C.R… results in wasteful spending at the Defense Department and has negative consequences for our defense.”

Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH): “We cannot continue limping along from one budget to the next – that’s no way to run our government.”

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT): “Enough is enough. We cannot continue to run a $4 trillion government on a month to month basis.”

Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD): “Our concern is we need a budget for the country. We are now four months into the fiscal year and we’ve been told by [government agencies] they cannot continue working with continuing resolutions, they have to have a budget in order for our country to function and there was no end in sight.” 

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA): “Our current budget process is broken. Time and time again Congress resorts to passing continuing resolutions and omnibus bills at the last minute instead of properly examining and debating our federal spending.”

 

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Let’s Make Congress Work Again

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Let’s Make Congress Work Again
The Hill
By U.S. Sen. David Perdue (R-GA)

In contrast to our current economic rebound, the United States debt is past the tipping point of a financial crisis. This should not come as a surprise.

Even though we are five months into the 2018 fiscal year, Congress has not funded the federal government for this year. Even after this week, Washington still may not get the job done.

Our national debt is over $20 trillion. We are on track to add another $10 trillion of debt over the next decade. The single biggest cause of our debt crisis is the funding mechanism used by Congress. It does not work, and Congress cannot fulfill its Constitutional obligations.

Enacted in 1974, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, has only worked four times in 44 years. Since then, Washington has resorted to over 180 continuing resolutions and 19 government shutdowns, including one last month.

Why does this keep happening? The budget process has completely broken down. It will never work as designed and it needs to be changed.

Today, the Congressional budget process consists of three steps: the budget, authorizations, and appropriations. However, the budget resolution is not a law.

Therefore, the majority party uses the budget as a political statement about how the government should spend its money. The minority party then revolts during the authorizations and appropriations processes. As a result, hundreds of billions in expired authorizations still received funding.

Ultimately, Congress is supposed to pass 12 appropriations bills each year, but its average over the last 44 years is an embarrassing 2.5 annually. This grinds Congress to a halt.

Additionally, the current budget process only deals with 25 percent of the $4 trillion the federal government spends. This is primarily for the military, VA, and other discretionary domestic programs. The other 75 percent is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, federal employee pensions, and interest on the national debt.

We have seen Washington lurch from one deadline to the next instead of actually debating policy changes and setting spending levels. What’s worse, lawmakers don’t bear the brunt of these missed deadlines. Instead, the consequences are felt by those who rely on government functions—including our women and men in the military.

Right now, we are funding the federal government on borrowed time with a continuing resolution that expires this Friday. Unless Congress passes another continuing resolution or spending package by then, we may face a similar fate as last month.

Before shutting the government down, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) himself said shutdowns are “governmental chaos.” We need more certainty, not more chaos coming from Washington.

The good news is there is a growing realization from both parties that the current budget process is not working and it must be fixed.

Last year, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and I introduced an amendment acknowledging that the budget process is broken. It got a vote, and the entire United States Senate agreed.

The voices are getting louder. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), another business guy in the United States Senate, said, “it’s impossible for the process we have today to work.”

Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) recently said, “Enough is enough. We cannot continue to run a $4 trillion government on a month-to-month basis. We need an annual budget.”

The time to act is now. Let’s make Congress work again. Let’s change the failed funding process so Washington can deal with our national debt once and for all.

Read more in The Hill.

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The Simple Truth About America’s Awful Tax Code

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The Simple Truth About America’s Awful Tax Code I Learned As A Fortune 500 CEO
NBC Think
Senator David Perdue (R-GA)

In business, it all comes down to your return on investment (ROI). Decisions are made based on what is best for the company’s bottom line. Unfortunately, America’s current tax code is telling companies they will get a better ROI by investing their resources in another country.

First, within the United States, we don’t have a level playing field across all industries. I led two Fortune 500 companies. One of them, Dollar General, today pays an effective tax rate of 37 percent. The other, Reebok, pays an effective rate of 19 percent. This is not because of loopholes exploited by these businesses. It is an amalgamation of 100 years of Washington toying with the tax code to incentivize certain industries without ever revisiting whether these incentives actually accomplished their intended goal, or were still relevant.

By design, the United States tax code dictates how business decisions are made. Because of Congress’s failure to continually update the code to keep up with the changes in the global economy, American consumers, companies and workers are being significantly disadvantaged.

At the same time, our international tax structure is jeopardizing domestic growth and crushing corporations’ ability to be globally competitive. We have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world and we still have a tax on repatriated earnings. Essentially, that is a double tax that has locked more than $2.6 trillion in U.S. profits overseas. Personally, this tax on repatriated earnings prevented me from investing where I wanted to — here in America.

Again, these profits trapped overseas could be put towards meaningful investments in plants, equipment, training and helping people change from one job to another. That’s a big need in the United States as we go from an industrial age to an information age. Instead, our tax code has contributed to 30 years of missed opportunities to grow the economy and develop our workforce.

In 1986, the United States changed the tax code to lower the corporate rate and make us more competitive. Since then, America has done nothing, while other countries such as Ireland, Germany, the UK and Japan all dramatically lowered their rates and did away with their repatriation tax. There are now plans to lower the corporate rate in both France and the Netherlands. This raises the stakes even higher for the United States.

As the global economy grows ever more interconnected, more and more of U.S. corporate profits are earned abroad. With other countries lowering their corporate rates and ending their repatriation tax, it is easy to see why American companies are targets on the global acquisitions market. Look at the last decade.

Since 2004, American companies lost more than $500 billion combined on the global acquisitions market. In fact, according to the Business Roundtable, American companies were the target for mergers and acquisitions 31 percent of the time, while they were the acquirer 16 percent of the time. If our corporate tax rate had been 20 percent, it is estimated that 3,200 companies would have stayed in America during that time.

I have lived in Asia and Europe, and have worked on every continent except Antarctica. Four decades of business experience has proven, time and time again, that America has the best workforce in the world. Our workforce is unique, innovative, self-starting and — regardless of obstacles — it gets the job done. However, today’s corporate tax structure is penalizing our workers. We have to reduce the tax burden before it cripples our workforce even further.

If we change the business tax code by lowering the corporate tax rate and eliminating the repatriation tax, there will be renewed investment in our economy. This change will create jobs, increase wages, boost workforce development and grow the economy. The policy non-profit Tax Foundation has projected that all of these changes, which are included in the current United States Senate plan, would create nearly 1 million new jobs.

The United States is on the cusp of an economic turnaround. Consumer confidence is at a 16-year high and manufacturer optimism is at a 20-year high. There is an expectation being priced into the bond and stock markets that something will happen on tax this year, and it’s imperative that Congress act accordingly. Changing the tax code by Christmas is the single greatest thing we can do to ignite economic growth next year.

This sense of urgency is sorely missing in Congress. In the real world, you have to get things done as fast — or faster — than your competitors. As a former Fortune 500 CEO, I competed with other major companies like Nike and Walmart. In the business world, you don’t think about things theoretically, you act instinctively.

Countries around the world have already lowered their corporate rates. Now the United States is playing catch up and we cannot wait any longer to deliver results. We need to change the tax code to grow the economy, put people back to work, increase wages, and over the long-term, help reduce the national debt. Otherwise we will continue to be outpaced by our competitors and American workers will pay the ultimate price.

Read more at NBC Think.

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Perdue Strengthens Ties To Trump

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David Perdue strengthens ties with Trump even as some colleagues fight
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tamar Hallerman

After President Donald Trump spent a recent morning trading barbs with Tennessee U.S. Sen. Bob Corker on Twitter, reporters on Capitol Hill swarmed his Republican colleague David Perdue.

Most of the journalists stuck to a similar theme: What did the Georgia freshman senator think of the president’s personal attacks on his friend and mentor? Did that mark a turning point in Perdue’s steadfast support of Trump?

Perhaps more than any of his colleagues, Perdue has defended Trump’s almost every move, brushing aside questions about his ally’s most provocative actions, pronouncements and tweets. The news media and general public, Perdue says, should not get bogged down in the controversy of the day but instead focus on the president’s broader policy agenda, which in many ways mirrors Perdue’s own.

Perdue wouldn’t take the reporters’ bait following Trump’s tussle with Corker.

“Look, every U.S. senator is entitled to their own opinion,” he said, declining to criticize either man. “I have a different opinion. We have a person in the White House who is a person of destiny, coming in at an important time where we need to break some eggs in Washington.”

Trump’s public clashes with several of Perdue’s Senate GOP colleagues has caused some in the upper chamber to back away from the president. But Perdue has taken a noticeably different tack, standing squarely and unflappably with the commander in chief through even his most embattled moments.

“My approach is to continue to encourage (Trump) to stay focused on his agenda because the message I get home in Georgia is ‘Why are you guys in the Senate not supporting his agenda?’ ” Perdue said in an interview last week. “You could always talk about what he said in this tweet or that tweet, but when you back up and look at what’s happening in the country, that’s what people back home are really paying attention to.”

The strategy has helped Perdue fortify his ties to the West Wing and give his legislative priorities a boost, including a proposed overhaul of the country’s immigration system.

Entwined pasts

Perdue’s relationship with the president stretches back to 2014, when both were businessmen and relative political unknowns.

The Sea Island resident had just emerged the winner following an ugly GOP primary runoff to capture Saxby Chambliss’ former U.S. Senate seat, and Trump had summoned Perdue to Trump Tower to discuss his journey from the boardroom to the ballot. Little did Perdue know at the time that Trump was mulling a run for president.

The relationship grew from there.

Perdue was one of the earliest and most prominent elected officials in Georgia to become a Trump acolyte. Several Perdue allies ended up on the real estate magnate’s campaign, including Nick Ayers, who went on to become Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff.

After Trump’s November victory, Perdue’s name was briefly floated as a possible pick for secretary of commerce. It was ultimately his cousin Sonny who ended up with a Cabinet post, but Perdue’s star has risen since Trump’s inauguration.

After his signature legislative proposal, a bill to shift the country’s legal immigration rules to a more merit-based system from a family-focused one, sat collecting dust in the Senate for months, Trump single-handedly revived its fortunes by offering his support at a White House event. Components of Perdue’s bill are now being negotiated as part of talks over the fate of so-called Dreamers brought to the country illegally as children.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment about Trump’s relationship with Perdue, but Trump’s legislative director, Marc Short, recently told The Washington Examiner that “there’s been no more ardent supporter of the president” than Perdue in the Senate. “He is somebody who has been eager to help us on battles big and small,” Short said.

Handling differences

When describing his support of the president, Perdue often draws parallels to his own election in 2014. Georgia voters picked him over a host of well-known Republican figures and Democrat Michelle Nunn because they were sick of politics as usual, he frequently says.

When opinions do diverge, Perdue has taken great care not to criticize the president directly while also defending Trump’s executive authority.

When Trump announced this summer that transgender people would no longer be able to serve in the military, Perdue toed the line, even though he later said he personally believes that population should be able to serve as long as the government didn’t pay for any gender reassignment surgeries.

“I don’t think this is the time to have a social agenda conversation,” Perdue told the publication Mic in July. “I think (Trump) is well within his rights (to impose the ban).”

During Trump’s more unvarnished moments, Perdue often reverts to a refrain that Trump isn’t a choirboy and that people should focus on the larger picture: the president’s push to cut taxes and regulatory red tape. In a recent interview, he compared Trump to the United Kingdom’s World War II-era prime minister, Winston Churchill.

Churchill “was nobody’s choirboy at the time, but he was a man of destiny who pulled that country together and survived one of the greatest debacles in their history,” Perdue said.

“Here we’ve got I believe a man that’s willing to break some eggs in Washington,” Perdue said of Trump. “He doesn’t know what the traditions are or the rules or anything else. He’s just trying to get results.”

Georgia Democrats were not impressed with the comparison.

“This ridiculous comparison by Perdue hardly merits a response,” said state Sen. Nan Orrock of Atlanta. “Churchill’s legendary leadership helped defeat the Nazis in WWII, while Trump hasn’t passed a single bill in nine months as president. It’s like comparing Secretariat with Eeyore. One’s a winner and the other is a loser. Sad!”

Character reference

In some ways, Perdue’s approach to Trump is not all that different from Georgia’s other Republican members of Congress. All have endorsed the president, defended his policies and have voted with his legislative priorities at least 90 percent of the time, according to the political analysis site FiveThirtyEight.

But Perdue is undoubtedly one of the delegation’s — and the Congress’ — most outspoken Trump allies, especially when it comes to the president’s character. Perdue will often describe his interactions with Trump, his family and his Cabinet on personal terms. If a man surrounds himself with such sound company, he says, that speaks volumes about his judgment.

The fact that Perdue has stuck so close to Trump does not surprise many in local GOP circles.

“Georgia Republicans remain as steadfast in their support of President Trump as Senator Perdue,” GOP strategist Brian Robinson said. “He may not reflect the viewpoints of other senators in the caucus, but he does reflect the viewpoints of Georgia Republicans. He hasn’t forgotten where he’s from.”

Trump did well in Georgia last November, carrying the state by more than 5 percentage points. His victory margins were even higher outside metro Atlanta.

“I think the danger in Georgia Republican politics is not being with the president,” Robinson said.

There are very few vocal anti-Trump Republicans actively involved in Georgia politics at the moment, but one former GOP operative worries about the long-term risks of officials such as Perdue embracing Trump so wholeheartedly. The party may have trouble attracting serious, top-tier talent if rhetoric such as Trump’s becomes accepted and encouraged, said Clint Murphy, a former GOP operative who once worked for U.S. Sen. Paul Coverdell and then-gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel.

“I’m just worried that the future of it is just you’re going to have less and less people who are policy-driven and more and more personality-driven and ego-driven politics,” Murphy said.

“It’s concerning because at the end of the day, how you conduct yourself is just as important as what you are trying to accomplish,” he said.

But even Murphy acknowledged Perdue’s embrace of Trump could yield political dividends for Georgia, including more money for the Savannah port expansion.

Higher levels of funding have yet to materialize for the $973 million project, but boosters are hopeful Trump’s campaign promise of a major infrastructure bill could benefit Savannah and the state.

Read more at the AJC.

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The National Debt Surpassed $20 Trillion. No One In Washington Blinked.

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David Perdue: ‘National Debt Surpassed $20 Trillion and No One in Washington Blinked’
Washington Free Beacon

Following multiple Senate votes confirming President Trump’s judicial nominees, Sen. David Perdue (R., Ga.) said Congress needs to address the national debt.

Perdue declared on the Senate floor that “our national debt surpassed $20 trillion for the first time and no one in Washington blinked an eye.”

Perdue argued that solving the debt is “going to take a multifaceted approach,” including tax reform and spending cuts.

“The way to fix it is in our grasp. No. 1, we need to fix Washington’s broken budget process. Two: We need to root out all the wasteful spending in the federal government today. Three: We’ve got to grow the economy by peeling and pulling back on a lot of regulations that are unnecessary and by revamping our tax structure and by unleashing our energy potential. No. 4: We need to save Social Security and Medicare and, lastly, we finally have to get after the real drivers of spiraling health care costs.”

Perdue mentioned that the Government Accountability Office put the country’s wasteful spending at over $700 billion, which is more than what the country spends on national security.

“It’s unconscionable that I’m standing here before the United States Senate tonight reminding us all that there is $700 billion a year that we spend in error, just bureaucratic error,” Perdue said.

Then, Perdue tied tax reform to solving the debt crisis.

“Along with reducing our spending by almost 20 percent each year, we need to grow the economy to solve this debt crisis,” he said. “The single most important thing that we can do to grow the economy next year is to change this tax code.”

Perdue credited cutting regulations under “the president’s guidance” for a strong economy in 2017, but suggested it could be even stronger.

“Who knows what this economy should be growing at right now if we just get Washington out of the way,” Perdue said.

“Part of the way to do that is to correct this archaic tax policy. Changing the tax code will mean more jobs and higher wages for American workers,” Perdue said, calling tax reform a “historic opportunity.”

But Perdue ended his speech by saying that tackling the debt will require more than just tax reform.

“I urge my colleagues to take seriously this opportunity we have of changing our tax code,” Perdue said. “It’s historic. At the same time, we’ve got to get serious about eliminating our redundant and outrageous, unnecessary spending.”

Read more at the Washington Free Beacon.

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The Single Greatest Threat To Our National Security

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Rising debt is greatest national security threat. Here’s how to fix it.
Senator David Perdue, USA Today

The single greatest threat to our national security is our national debt. Last month, the debt topped $20 trillion. This should have sounded alarms throughout Washington. However, it went largely unnoticed and today it’s still business as usual.

Washington is on track to rack up another $11 trillion in debt over the next decade, and there’s another $100 trillion in future unfunded liabilities (consisting of spending of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt and pensions for federal employees) coming at us like a freight train. That’s close to $1 million for every household in America.

We also live in a world that’s more dangerous than anytime in our lifetimes, yet because of our government’s own intransigence, our global standing and military are in a weakened state.

America’s foreign policy has always depended on three precepts: development, diplomacy and defense. The debt and unfunded liabilities jeopardize our ability to fund each of them. For example, today we have the smallest Army since World War II, the smallest Navy since World War I, and the smallest and oldest Air Force ever.

I’ve traveled around the world to meet with our troops, foreign leaders and our diplomats, so we’ve seen the impact the debt is having on America’s ability to lead globally firsthand.

Admiral Mike Mullen, a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has repeatedly warned that the debt is the single greatest threat to our national security. In his confirmation hearing, Defense Secretary James Mattis said the same thing. When he said, “if you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition,” he summed up how the debt is impacting our entire foreign policy.

There are five interwoven imperatives that could address this crisis.

First, we have to fix Washington’s broken budget process. It has only worked four times in the past 43 years and is the root cause of the crisis.

Second, we have to root out redundant spending in the federal government.

Third, we have to grow the economy. If we’re going to do so, we must change our tax code this year to one that is fairer and will make us more competitive with the rest of the world. We also have to continue to roll back harmful regulations and make full use of our energy resources.

Fourth, we have to save Social Security and Medicare before their trust funds go to zero in 17 years. The only way to do so is to bring them into the budget process.

Fifth, we have to get after the real drivers of rising health care costs.

Great nations fall over time when they allow fiscal and economic issues to spiral past the tipping point of a crisis. America has always been the best at responding to a moment of crisis, but we’re often the last to recognize it’s reached that we’re in a crisis.

We can meet the challenge again, but if we’re going to do so, we have to recognize that we are knee-deep into this crisis and act accordingly.

Read more at USA Today.

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