PAY-AS-YOU-GO

Blue Dog Blueprint for Fiscal Reform: PAY-AS-YOU-GO

We have taken the first step to ensuring that government does not spend beyond its means by restoring the proven, bipartisan pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules that effectively brought about budget surpluses in the 1990's.

Statutory PAYGO will limit the federal deficit and provide for needed investments.
Larger deficits mean a higher national debt, which means that a greater proportion of the budget must be spent paying interest on that debt. The interest we already pay each year on the national debt is more than we spend on education and veterans combined. Statutory PAYGO will help limit the growth in government spending so that we can begin to rein in these out of control deficits.

Fiscal Responsibility is a long-time Blue Dog priority.
Reinstating statutory PAYGO budget discipline has been a long-standing priority of the Blue Dogs. By giving this commonsense budget enforcement tool the force of law, we have taken the first step to ensure that government does not spend beyond its means.

American Families make tough choices, and so should their government.
It is not a Republican idea or a Democratic idea, it's a commonsense idea. American families make tough choices everyday; the federal government should also.

We have a responsibility to future generations of Americans.
Failure to address our nation's fiscal crisis will not only cripple our economy, it will have devastating consequences for future generations of Americans, who will ultimately have to pay for today's deficit spending. Statutory PAYGO is a proven effective tool for restoring real fiscal discipline to government.

We are putting our economy and national security at risk.
We are putting our economy and national security at risk by allowing so much of our debt to be held by so few. Reinstituting statutory PAYGO rules will force us to rein in spending so that we do not have to rely on countries like China to pay for our priorities.