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A Commitment to End Woke and Weaponized Government

December 7, 2022

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2023 Budget Proposal From Center for Renewing America

Excerpt from Introduction to the Center for Renewing America FY2023 Budget

The evidence of America’s fiscal brokenness is everywhere. Inflation—an economic phenomenon the experts promised was permanently relegated to history—is now running at forty-year highs, making all of life more expensive but worse, making fools out of all those taught to save their money for the deferred gain of building and investing. The nation owes $31 trillion and counting, and the interest the Treasury Department must pay is steadily marching higher and higher. The annual cost of interest payments will exceed the Pentagon’s budget within the next ten years.

The notion of “fiscal discipline” itself might as well be in a time capsule. Congress considers no budgets, legislation never hits against cost limitations, and every partisan disagreement is “solved” simply by spending more on the pet programs of the opposing party. The Federal Reserve creates trillions of dollars with a few keyboard clicks payable to big banks who will be paid interest for not lending, and in exchange for subsuming the nation’s debt, which alleviates policymakers from experiencing the hangover of their financial mismanagement—all while clamoring about the importance of its “independence” to escape government by the people.

So yes, the need for a budget—a fiscal plan—could not be more immediate. But there are some serious challenges facing any renewed effort to deal with this fiscal nightmare, and any budget intended for results must consider these.

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Full Introduction

“He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to the officers and to his servants…He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day, you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves.” 1 Samuel 8:10-18

The notion of “fiscal discipline” itself might as well be in a time capsule. Congress considers no budgets, legislation never hits against cost limitations, and every partisan disagreement is “solved” simply by spending more on the pet programs of the opposing party. The Federal Reserve creates trillions of dollars with a few keyboard clicks payable to big banks who will be paid interest for not lending, in exchange for subsuming the nation’s debt, which alleviates policymakers from experiencing the hangover of their financial mismanagement—all while clamoring about the importance of its “independence” to escape government by the people.

So yes, the need for a budget—a fiscal plan—could not be more immediate. But there are some serious challenges facing any renewed effort to deal with this fiscal nightmare, and any budget intended for results must consider these.

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FIRST, as bad as the fiscal situation is in the US, another immediate threat facing the American people cannot be ignored. The global COVID pandemic made it painfully obvious that a small scientific elite could shut down the economy, keep people from running their businesses, mandate an experimental drug be jabbed into another’s body to participate in society, and denigrate health treatments that could have saved millions. On the heels of this wrenching national experience is the growing awareness that the national security apparatus itself is arrayed against that half of the country not willing to bend the knee to the people, institutions, and elite worldview that make up the current governing regime. Instead of fulfilling their intended purpose of keeping the American people safe, they are hard-wired now to keep the regime in power. And that includes the emergence of political prisoners, a weaponized, SWAT-swaggering FBI, the charges of “domestic terrorism” and “disinformation” in relation to adversaries’ exercise of free speech, and the reality that the NSA is running a surveillance state behind the protective curtain of “national security.” The immediate threat facing the nation is the fact that the people no longer govern the country; instead, the government itself is increasingly weaponized against the people it is meant to serve.

Furthermore, the nation is just beginning to wake up to and meet the threat of a century-long cultural revolution that divides the country on the basis of race and “identity,” disintegrates the institutions of western civilizations from within, teaches rising generations to hate their country and each other, and encourages the destruction of neighborhoods and cities which by extension are not worth saving. This revolution started in left-wing universities but has long since become the central worldview of the regime’s governing elites. As the rioting and destruction in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death revealed, “woke” went mainstream, and a multitude sought to tear down its own society. It is not just in the streets but also in schools, workplaces, corporate boardrooms, and churches in the form of Critical Race Theory. Instead of being a haven from such toxicity, a place for citizens to come together to serve the betterment of the public, the government is now a main distribution channel. The federal bureaucracy is the movement’s funding source, and through lucrative grants and contracts, the bit steering private businesses to — coercively regulate the narrative. Its open borders beget multiculturalism aimed at cultural incoherence. The US is even exporting it to other countries by funding gay pride events and LGBT activists in other countries under the guise of foreign aid.

In short, America cannot be saved unless the current grip of woke and weaponized government is broken. That is the central and immediate threat facing the country—the one that all our statesmen must rise tall to vanquish. The battle cannot wait. However, this woke and weaponized regime requires the resources of taxpayers to flourish and can be starved in order to dismantle it. Of course, these spending cuts will result in significant savings for the taxpayers. Thus, the main priority of this first Budget from the Center for Renewing America is to consciously and indelibly link the efforts of getting our nation’s finances in order with removing the scourge of woke and weaponized bureaucracy aimed at the American people.

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SECOND, over the last two decades, the debates about fiscal responsibility have been (intentionally and unintentionally) mired in the quicksands of strategic incompetence and lacking any common sense. There has been a conviction by reformers that because so-called mandatory spending—“entitlements” or the spending that is on auto-pilot without annual decisions by Congress—is the largest portion of the federal budget and growing in the very near future, then it and only it must be the necessary target of fiscal reformers to the exclusion of discretionary spending. Not content there, because Social Security and Medicare, in particular, are large, mathematical drivers of this spending growth, fiscal seriousness demanded that they be the lead ox to be gored. Never mind the public’s perception that they had paid into dedicated trust funds and knew lawmakers had been dipping into these surpluses for decades to fund their pet programs.

As this conviction took hold, fiscal reformers lost their bearings. They forgot that while they had very little leverage each year to tackle mandatory spending, they had ample annual opportunities to tackle the discretionary spending that funded the federal government bureaucracies. As a result, nothing has occurred. The pain caucus beat their heads against a brick wall of political reality shouting about “entitlements!” Meanwhile, the political cartel comprised of the spending committees, the defense industrial complex, and the Left kept the finger pointed toward the shiny object. Many knowingly play both sides.

The second priority of this Budget is to end this charade and to focus the debate on the spending that is the easiest to cut practically and morally because it is funding the bureaucracies arrayed against the public. It is a nod to common sense. When families decide to get on a budget, they do not target the largest and immovable items of their spending, like their mortgage, first. They aim to restrain discretionary spending—they eat out less, shop less, and find cheaper ways of entertaining themselves. Then they look at what makes sense for the immovables—how to refinance their debt or make major life changes. Politically, a similar approach is the only way the American people will ever accept major changes to mandatory spending. They are simply not going to buy the notion that their earned entitlements must be tweaked while the federal government is funding Bob Dylan statues in Mozambique or gay pride parades in Prague. This Budget mathematically must include substantial reforms to mandatory spending to achieve balance—although importantly, there are no benefit reductions to Social Security or Medicare beneficiaries—strategically, it will emphasize the discretionary cuts needed to save the country from tyranny and prove to the country that the road to balance can really be walked again.

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THIRD, budgeting is too often an exercise in accounting and austerity, where every program takes a hit, rather than an opportunity to examine what in fact the country is spending money on. Nor is budgeting typically aimed at maintaining a political coalition necessary to vote for the plan. It should be. The Left has no interest in ever regaining fiscal rationality. Why should their spending priorities be protected? Particularly when such programs are damaging the very communities supporting the government with their taxes. Why should billions be spent on thousands of interwoven nonprofits, all with a vested interest in furthering multiculturalism through an open border strategy and engaging in lawfare against any effort to control the border? Why should billions be spent on Section 8 vouchers that spread crime and disfunction into safe neighborhoods as part of “affordable housing” activism hostile towards single-family homes? This Budget is an effort to separate the spending the nation desperately needs (a massive Navy, a completed border wall, infrastructure, etc.) from spending that is not just simply unaffordable but ruining communities and funding organizations that hate the country.

With all that being said, this Budget approach is fairly straightforward. It establishes the fiscal goal of getting to balance within ten years, believing both that a goal is necessary and that balance continues to be the only one relatable to the American people’s experience. It then meets that fiscal goal by emphasizing robust economic growth and sizable spending reductions. Both are vital. You cannot cut your way to balance—the target will keep getting bigger as revenues dry up while the public experiences the pain of

unemployment and austerity at the same time. Nor can you balance the budget through growth alone. This Budget assumes economic policies that will generate growth of 3 percent, and it includes nearly $9 trillion in savings over ten years from spending cuts and reforms. Of that amount nearly $3 trillion comes from discretionary spending, primarily dismantling the woke and weaponized bureaucracy, and $6 trillion originates from reforms to mandatory spending that increase participation in the labor force, reduce welfare, end the inflationary drivers of subsidizing student loans, inject common sense into health spending, etc. Again, it makes no reductions to Social Security retirement or Medicare benefits. The Budget should serve as a template for the next Congress to combat inflation and deal with the country’s fiscal recklessness and align that effort towards addressing the immediate threats facing the country. It is also proof to policymakers that balance is indeed possible.

One last disclaimer. This first Budget does not attempt to offer solutions to some of the most pressing long-term problems facing the country that should preoccupy conservative policymakers in the near future. For instance, the families of the West are not having enough babies for their societies to endure. Raising a family in America with only one parent working outside the home is often unaffordable, and public policy often incentivizes that trend. Much can be learned and adopted from a country like Hungary that has arrested such decline. However, this Budget is a start to an ongoing discussion that should include such policy innovations.

The Center for Renewing America hopes that it furthers a new commitment to deal with the nation’s finances—one oriented towards the most immediate threats facing the country and informed by a realistic strategy of getting the American people on board with the project.

Russ Vought
President, Center for Renewing America

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Woke And Weaponized Examples Defunded In 2023 Budget

$2.2 million for a “LatinX” science telenovela series (NSF)
$15k for University of Illinois to promote LGBTQ inclusion in engineering (NSF)
$200k for Science Museum of Minnesota to host “community conversations that
intersect STEM and racial justice” (NSF)
$240 million to sue coal workers (EPA)
$6.2 million for abortion services in Pennsylvania (HHS)
$279k for the National Black Justice Coalition for social media communication
with Black Men/Transgender Women (HHS)
$1.9 million for an Illinois non-profit to train teachers to “center equity” and be
“culturally responsive” in the classroom in order to “address the enduring and
systemic inequities in school systems.” (Education)
$2.7 million for a Rhode Island non-profit to train teachers and administrators to
“address the root causes of educational inequities” and transform systems by
dismantling systemic racism (Education)
$1.5 million to the University of Texas Arlington to instruct teachers on how to
blend math with social-emotional learning (SEL) and other Critical Theory
concepts (Education)
$150k for “Hold onto your Butt”: Program brings awareness to cigarette butt litter
in San Francisco (Commerce)
$59k for “Rise Above Plastic Day” telling Oregonians to stop using plastics for 1
day (Commerce)
$3.8 million for UnidosUS, a group that hosts town halls on “the Future of
Policing in America,” and is “committed to showing all Americans what “structural
racism” is and how to end it (Labor)
$41 million for a Soros Group (Acacia Center) that helps illegal immigrants avoid
deportation (DOJ)
$191k for exploring LGBTQ Military Service Member stressors and lived
experience (DOD)
$5.5k for diversity training on the importance of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and
Transgender inclusion in the United States Military (DOD
$1.4 million for Planting Justice, an organization in Oakland, California that
advances a “food justice” agenda to fight alleged systemic racism in the
industrialized food system (Agriculture)
$50k for The New York Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation for
so-called LGBT “historic sites”(Interior)
$30k for LGBTQIA+ arts & culture in Philly (Interior)
$4.5 for Online LGBT poetry readings at a language museum in Latvia (State)
$5k Prague Pride events (State)
$25k LGBT activist trainings in Senegal (State)

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FY2023 Budget Summary

A Commitment To End Woke & Weaponized Government FY 2023

The CRA Budget addresses the nation’s fiscal challenges with a comprehensive effort to revitalize the economy while removing the scourge of woke and weaponized government bureaucracy aimed at the American people.

Top Line Path to Balance:

● Balances the budget in ten years, reducing debt as a percentage of the economy from 100% to 71%.
● Revitalizes a strong economy, assuming policies that will achieve 3.1% growth in FY23 and roughly 2.8% throughout the budget window.
● Makes permanent the Trump-era TCJA and provides full expensing of all capital assets.
● Generates $3.8 trillion in increased revenues over ten years from lower taxes, renewed deregulatory efforts, aggressive energy exploration, and spending restraint.
● Achieves nearly $9 trillion in savings over ten years, including nearly $3 trillion to annual discretionary spending and $6 trillion in mandatory reforms.

Discretionary Spending:

● Nondefense: Provides $542 billion in non-defense discretionary spending, a cut of $91 billion or 14% compared to FY21, achieving $2.5 trillion in savings over ten years.
● Defense: Provides $824 billion in defense spending, an increase of $83 billion or 11% compared to FY21, to ramp for a potential confrontation with China, with key investments in Navy shipbuilding, nuclear modernization, missile defense and space platforms.
Reduces Army end strength and eliminates funding for Ukraine and the European Deterrence Initiative to reflect a pivot away from Europe as allies bear the costs of their own defense.
● Homeland Security: Increases DHS funding by 6%, including $5 billion to restart construction of the border wall, double the number of border patrol agents, and increase the Coast Guard by 11%.
● Woke & Weaponized Bureaucracy: Prioritizes cuts to woke and weaponized federal bureucracy, including:
❖ 7% cut to DOJ, including a 13% cut to the FBI intelligence and counterintelligence programs (while increasing resources for actual crime fighting by 18%).
❖ $22 billion or 20% cut to HHS, including a 37% cut to CDC to refocus its efforts towards fighting infectious diseases away from sexually transmitted and chronic diseases, a 50% cut to NIAD (led by Anthony Fauci) because of its commitment to gain-of-function research, and eliminating woke bureaucracy.
❖ $26 billion or 43% cut to HUD, including a three-year phase out of Section 8 grants that are a magnet for crime and decreased property values and cuts to the fair housing bureaucracy committed to breaking up neighborhoods with single family homes.
❖ $26 billion or 45% cut to foreign aid, ensuring that State & USAID are no longer funding drag shows in Equador, the training of LGBT activits in Senegal, or gay pride parades in Prague.
❖ $18 billion or 26% cut to the Department of Education’s bureaucracy funding CRT and ensuring that states avoid this bureaucracy with a large blockgrant.

● Infrastructure: Increases funding for the Transportation Department by 10% with large increases for airports, seaports, and freight rail improvements. In addition, $187 billion is provided to improve the nation’s infrastructure.
● NASA: Fully funds the Artemis Project for the US to return to the moon with a 37% increase in space exploration paid for by sizable cuts to NASA science programs.

Mandatory Savings:

● Achieves $6 trillion in savings from reforms that increase labor force participation and scale back an overly generous welfare system. There are NO changes to Medicare and Social Security retirement beneficiaries.
● Medicare: Grows Medicare spending by 6% annually (down from 7%) with reforms that will not negatively impact beneficiaries, including:
❖ Lowering the cost of prescription drugs ($178 billion);
❖ Move certain unrelated programs outside of Medicare such as graduate medical education and uncompensated care for hospitals to grow slower ($167 billion);
❖ Various site neutrality reforms to ensure Medicare compensates equally for services and between different facilities ($337 billion);
❖ Automatically enrolls Medicare beneficiaries in the lowest-cost plan in a given region, while seniors could still change plans without penalty ($98 billion); and
❖ Eliminating payments to hospitals for “bad debt,” removing incentives to not recoup payments where they are owed ($44 billion).
● Medicaid: Freezes Medicaid spending (down from 3% growth), eliminates the Obamacare coverage expansions, and returns the program to its focus on vulnerable populations. Reforms include:
❖ Eliminate the Obamacare expansion of coverage for able-bodied working age adults, allowing states to disentangle their Medicaid programs from Obamacare ($1.1 trillion);
❖ Eliminate the Federal Assistance Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) floor that covers 50% of wealthy blue state Medicaid excesses ($653 billion); and
❖ Given that up to a quarter of Medicaid spending is deemed improper, increase program integrity controls and eliminate state scams to increase Medicaid reimbursements ($509 billion).
● Disability Insurance: Removes disincentives for beneficiaries to avoid reentry into the labor force and reforms the current vocational considerations (age, education, work experience) that are not specifically linked to a disabling medical condition ($253 billion).
● Food Stamps: Adds a work requirement for able-bodied adults to transition to self-sufficiency, limits food stamp benefits to pre-pandemic levels, and provides a portion of food through Harvest Food Boxes ($412 billion).
● Student Loans: Phase out the price-distorting Federal Student Loan program and introduce repayment reforms that simplify the options and ensure gainfully employed individuals pay off their loans in a timely manner, including one income-driven, capped payment option ($266 billion).
● Eliminate Tax Credits for Illegal Aliens: Ensures that illegal aliens without a SSN cannot qualify for Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC) and Child Tax Credits ($73 billion).