Congressman: Quit borrowing money!

One member of the GOP says his party should not have been willing to go along with Democratic plans to spend and borrow more money.

It was Texas Rep. John Carter, the GOP conference secretary, who told Greg Corombos of Radio America in an interview for WND that he wouldn't go along with the recent plan to extend payroll tax rates and borrow the lost money.

He said he doesn't think the lower rates are helping the economy and he doesn't like the idea of taking money away from Social Security recipients.

But his biggest criticism is that Congress is adding to an already staggering debt and a Republican-led House is a willing partner. Carter said the GOP needs to get back to regular order, which means passing a conservative bill and then negotiating with the Senate Democrats rather than negotiating before anything is passed.

He said, "We've been promising and promising that we're going to be about reducing spending, and about reducing the deficit. The fact this is not paid for – that's not what we should be about right now."

TRENDING: Caught red-handed

Join the campaign to let members of Congress know it's time to just stop the borrowing.

The "No More Red Ink" campaign seems to align with his ideas.

That updated and expanded campaign created by WND founder Joseph Farah simply would have the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives decline to authorize any further borrowing.

The move would be expected to force immediate and sudden budget cuts that would result in the federal government living within its income.

That idea gets significant approval from Americans.

According to the results of a recent Wenzel Strategies poll for WND, two out of three voters across the political spectrum say they are more likely to support a presidential or congressional candidate who promises to freeze the debt limit and stop borrowing more money; that is, simply stop the nation's red ink.

The stunning results come as all major GOP candidates have at some point addressed the profligate spending by Obama, under whose direction the U.S. national debt has surged by some $5 trillion – so far.

The new interview:

The poll was conducted by telephone for WND Feb. 1-3. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.44 percentage points.

More than 48 percent of respondents, including 29 percent of the Democrats and nearly 65 percent of the Republicans, said they were much more likely to support a candidate who wants to freeze the debt and stop borrowing. Another 19 percent said they were somewhat more likely.

The dramatic impact of a freeze, because of the demands Obama's programs have put on the budget, likely could create the need to close down entire federal bureaucracies.

On the other side of the fence, only 20 percent of the respondents said they were less likely to support such a candidate.

Fritz Wenzel, whose organization does the polling for WND, said, "Overwhelming majorities of Americans believe there should be firm restrictions placed on the federal government's ability to borrow to force Washington to spend less money, even if that means massive cutbacks in federal agencies. They also will vote overwhelmingly for candidates for president and congressional offices who promised to impose such cuts on the national government."

He continued, "Whether it is the continuing weak economy, their own pressing personal debt problems, or reports of the social unrest that out-of-control government spending in Europe has caused over there, Americans appear to have finally realized that we as a nation can no longer afford a federal government that spends trillions more than it takes in. The idea that we would never have to really face consequences for deficit spending has finally been dispelled, and people are now expressing concern that their very way of life – and especially the future prosperity of their children – will be adversely affected by what politicians in Washington are doing today."

He said the issue had been brought up nominally during the 2010 midterm elections, "but financial issues have faded somewhat recently as some Republican candidates for president savage each other over personal, not policy, grievances."

Wenzel said the new poll "shows that the voters are ahead of most politicians on the question of mounting public debt, and those candidates who make it their hallmark stand to gain substantially."

More than half the respondents "strongly agree" that the federal government's borrowing authority should be frozen, forcing Washington to spend less. Another 17 percent "somewhat agree."

See detailed results of survey questions:

Would you favor such a freeze in the government's ability to borrow more money, knowing it would result in spending cuts totaling more than $1 trillion and would likely result in the elimination of entire bureaucracies in Washington?

Do you agree or disagree with presidential candidate Ron Paul's promise to cut $1 trillion from spending in his first year in office?

Do you agree or disagree that the other Republican candidates should make the same pledge that Ron Paul has made about cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget in the first year as president?

Would you be more or less likely to vote for a presidential candidate or congressional candidate who pledged to freeze the debt limit and stop borrowing any more money?

Join the campaign to let members of Congress know it's time to just stop the borrowing.