Mike Prendergast, the Republican nominee in the District 11 race against Democrat Kathy Castor, on Thursday unveiled his plan on trying to revive the economy if he pulls off a shocker and beats the two-term Representative next month.
Although there are several dozens of Congressional seats that the Republican expect to win in November, the race against Castor in the heavily Democratic based 11th District is an uphill lift, but Prendergast is certainly running the most spirited race by a Republican in the decade this reporter has lived in the district.
The retired Army Colonel is on the same page with other Republicans in calling for repealing the federal health care bill. If the GOP were to to take the House will surely pass such legislation, and who knows what might happen in the Senate? But Barack Obama seriously would surely veto it.
In any event, Prendergast wants to cancel unused TARP and stimulus money. But as President Clinton said in St. Petersburg the other day, TARP has paid back 92% of the $700 billion that originally went out in 2008. There' s not that much left in the stimulus tank either, though the public as a whole might agree to such a plan. Like many Republican running this year, he wants to cap discretionary spending back to 2008.
He also wants to reduce government hiring, and freeze government pay.
Few Republicans want to touch defense when talking about spending cuts, but everybody knows that after the entitlement programs, that's where the big money is. So Prendergast, the former veteran, deserves credit for calling for this, which would be to mandate the Defense Department to conduct a quadrennial review for every department in the military, which he says will be a way to find savings.
He also wants to maintain the current plan by House Republicans to ban all earmarks. He'll maintain all the Bush tax cuts, as well the Estate tax.
This article appears in Oct 21-27, 2010.