Senate candidates sharply disagree about economy
2006-10-12
Source: Minnesota Public Radio
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rss feedWhen Amy Klobuchar released her economic plan late in the summer, the Kennedy campaign released a statement that said Klobuchar would massively increase taxes and destroy "tens of thousands of Minnesota jobs."
The crux of Klobuchar's economic agenda is to reduce the national deficit. The deficit is currently running at about $250 billion. In other words, Congress is spending that much more than it's collecting in revenue.
Klobuchar argues slashing the debt would free up a lot of money.
"One out of every 12 federal dollars that's spent by the government goes to these interest payments," Klobuchar explained while standing before a podium in a Carlson School of Business lecture room at the University of Minnesota.
"So if you think about it in your own life, of the $5,500 that a typical middle-class taxpayer pays in federal taxes each year, $454 of that amount is wasted on paying interest on the national debt," Klobuchar said.
Klobuchar argues getting rid of the deficit and lowering the national debt would bring down interest rates and reduce the cost-of-living.
To turn around the nation's finances Klobuchar is campaigning on a plan she says would raise and save a total of $400 billion a year. Nearly half of that -- $171 billion -- Klobuchar says, could be realized through health care savings, including Medicare drug price negotiations, electronic medical record keeping, and an end of tax breaks for pharmaceutical company advertising.
To further reduce spending Klobuchar would institute a return to "pay-as-you go" budgeting, meaning that government expenditures could not exceed revenue.
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