Doug Hoffman hit the campaign trail Monday with a message that conservative voters have embraced for decades: We need lower taxes and smaller government.<\/p>\n
On his website, Mr. Hoffman quotes Ronald Reagan: \u201cThe problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
The problem for the Conservative candidate is that he declines to name a single substantive cut that he would make to the Federal budget. <\/p>\n
His proposed solution: “I would cut the pork and wasteful earmarks.”<\/p>\n
Mr. Hoffman is a widely respected accountant. He knows how to read a spread-sheet. He understands better than most of us that pork projects account for 1-2% of all Federal spending.<\/p>\n
If you magically eliminated every single wasteful earmark, you wouldn’t change the game at all.<\/p>\n
Balancing America’s budget will require deep and painful cuts to everything from Social Security to the Pentagon — especially if we aim to get there, as Mr. Hoffman proposes, without raising taxes.<\/p>\n
Mr. Hoffman’s argument grows even more tenuous when he talks about the North Country, a region deeply dependent on state and Federal subsidies. <\/p>\n
We are a “net drain” on the treasuries in Albany and Washington, meaning we pay far less in taxes than we receive in spending.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Hoffman declined to mention a single significant sacrifice that our communities would need to make to help bring down the state or Federal deficits.<\/p>\n
Obviously, it is politically unpopular to talk about belt-tightening and more individual responsibility — that’s why we’re in the mess we’re in.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Hoffman argues that he is a serious and principled fiscal conservative, contrasting himself with Republican Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava.<\/p>\n
To claim that mantle, he needs to offer more straight talk and more substance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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