Who'll Slash the National Debt?

In a 51-page report titled Primary Numbers: The GOP Candidates and the National Debt, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget puts the budget plans of the four GOP Presidential candidates through a detailed review. The results show that only one candidate has a budget plan that will halt the growth of the national debt over the next nine years. That candidate? Ron Paul.

Only one candidate reverses the deficit curve over the next decade. (CRFB graphic)
The plans of Gingrich, Santorum and Romney are similar to a large degree. They all propose big spending cuts, lower taxes, and major changes in Social Security and Medicare. Only Ron Paul proposes a plan that would reduce the national debt over time and protect those currently enrolled in Social Security and Medicare, while giving younger workers the ability to opt out of those plans.

As the Christian Science Monitor explains,

Ron Paul has touted himself as the strongest fiscal conservative running for the Republican presidential nomination, and according to one new analysis, he may be right.

The Texas congressman ranks as the one candidate among four whose announced policies would leave America with a lower national debt than it would have under a status quo course.

That's the tentative conclusion of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group, in a report evaluating the tax and spending policies of Representative Paul, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum.

CNN Money states, "3 of 4 GOP candidates would add to deficits."

Newt Gingrich's economic plan would do a lot of things. But reducing the debt and balancing the federal budget aren't among them.

Same goes for Rick Santorum's and Mitt Romney's economic plans.

Indeed, a preliminary analysis by the independent Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released Thursday estimates that the three candidates' plans could add between $250 billion and $7 trillion of debt over the next nine years.

By contrast, the proposals of Ron Paul could reduce the debt by $2.2 trillion, the group estimated.

In the fourteen years that the National Taxpayer's Union has been grading Congress, Ron Paul has received an "A" every year. His scores have ranged from 84% to 96%. Information on their scoring process is available here.

In addition, Andrew Moylan, Vice President of Government Affairs for the National Taxpayers Union, had this to say about Ron Paul:

On our Congressional Rating, Ron Paul is almost without peer. His lifetime average is over 90%, he has snagged the top spot four times, ranked 2nd overall seven times and has never ranked lower than 10th overall in the House. In other words, in his "worst" year on our Rating, he still had a more fiscally conservative voting record than 425 out of 435 Representatives.

The message is clear. If fiscal responsibility in government is your number one issue, Ron Paul is your number one man.

...and that's all I have to say about that.