Rick Perry kicked up some dust at last Saturday’s GOP Presidential Candidates’ Debate by saying that foreign aid should be “zero based.”
The remark has caused a massive wringing of hands … e.g. “but what about Israel?”
Settle down folks.
Zero-based doesn’t necessarily mean zero.
It simply means stating each year with a clean sheet … starting each year’s budget at zero, and then justifying spending an item at time … rather than simply taking last year’s budget as a starting point and adjusting that total up or down (usually up).
Any funding that gets justified gets added; unjustified spending gets axed.
Sounds reasonable doesn’t it?
It’s the way well run businesses do it.
If your still uncomfortable, think of it as going through the budget line-by-line.
Remember, when Candidate Obama said he’d go through the budget line-by-lined, people cheered the new way of doing business
When Candidate Perry said essentially the same thing, people squirmed.
The difference?
Easy.
President Obama didn’t do it. Doubt if he ever intended to …. but, it did resonate on the stump.
If Perry gets elected president, he just might do it.
Oh my, fiscal responsibility … time to squirm.
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For the record, I’m not a big Rick Perry fan, but I do think he landed a nice punch with this one.
Tags: zero-based busgeting
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