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Congress must acknowledge that failure to adjust our spending priorities threatens our freedom, our opportunities and our security.

Two fundamental rules in economics are: “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” and, “Spending on anything comes at the expense of something else.” The conservative mantra repeatedly sold to the American public is that tax cuts pay for themselves. Ten economic Nobel Prize laureates included among 450 economists, told former President Bush that his “tax cuts will worsen the long-term budget outlook...would reduce the capacity of the government to finance Social Security and Medicare benefits as well as investments in schools, health, infrastructure, and basic research...[and] generate further inequalities in after-tax income.”

Warren Buffet wrote in 2003: “When you listen to tax-cut rhetoric, remember that giving one class of taxpayer a 'break' requires –now or down the line – that an equivalent burden be imposed on other parties. In other words, if I get a break, someone else pays. Government can't deliver a free lunch to the country as a whole.”

The jury has returned their verdict on tax cut initiatives. The federal deficit has ballooned as a consequence. As “former Comptroller General of the United States David Walker stated during January 2009: “You can't have guns, butter, and tax cuts. The numbers just don't add up.” It is irresponsible for Congress to think otherwise.