A road for correcting America's fiscal crisis

Suppose I offered an economic growth package that called for cutting the corporate tax rate, reducing the federal workforce by 10 percent, adopting Paul Ryan's "premium support" plan for reducing Medicare costs, freezing discretionary spending at 2008 levels, creating a sunset commission to identify waste and mismanagement and reducing our current five tax brackets to three — 12 percent, 23 percent and 28 percent?

I would argue that reforms like these, and others, are needed to increase American economic competitiveness.

Our corporate tax rate is the highest in the developed world and nearly 15 percent higher than the international average.

Our federal workforce is almost the largest it has ever been, costing taxpayers hundreds of billions each year in pay, benefits and other compensation in an era of automation and innovation.

Medicare costs are spiraling out of control, and a lack of competition for your health-care dollar, along with an overly monopolized insurance system, robs the American taxpayer of value for their dollar.

Discretionary spending, the main driver of today's deficits, is expanding at double-digit levels above inflation. Under President George W. Bush discretionary spending increased nearly 50 percent and represented an irresponsible binge that we continue to pay for today. Instead of reversing course, President Barack Obama has put that binge into overdrive and increased discretionary spending even more.

Institutionally, Congress continues to be geared toward expanding government. It is long past time for a congressional committee dedicated to downsizing and finding efficiencies in government. According to the Government Accountability Office, there are nearly $200 billion in redundant or ineffective government programs on the books.

Finally, tax reform should be job one of this Congress. Our tax code is anti-competitive, anti-family and anti-business. It has no nexus to economic growth and is, instead, used to socially engineer or attempt to influence behavior.

No doubt, liberal luminaries would call me "inflexible" and deem such measures "draconian." I would be pilloried as a tea-party radical, unwilling to compromise and eager to kill grandmothers and grandfathers, and the liberal editorial pages would ceaselessly deride me for being a corporate lackey and indifferent to the plight of "the middle class."

If these reforms seem too conservative for some to accept without something in return, suppose I decided to collaborate with my Democratic colleagues.

In exchange for the reforms above, I agreed to support eliminating all corporate tax expenditures — aka corporate tax loopholes. No more corporate jet loophole, no more hedge-fund manager loophole and no more tax giveaways to millionaires and billionaires. These eliminations would, according to the Tax Policy Center, bring in a little more than $1 trillion over 10 years to the federal government.

In addition, let's assume I and my conservative colleagues also supported an audit of the Defense Department, putting all war costs into the budget and including defense in any spending cuts.

If I and my Democratic colleagues agreed to do all of this, would those of us who said no to the latest "deal" (that did not prevent our credit downgrade, I might add) still be considered obstructionists and rigid ideologues?

Before you answer, I must apologize; I nearly forgot to mention something very important. I support every one of the proposals above. But I cannot, in good conscience, take credit for them.

They are exactly what President Obama's fiscal commission recommended.

That's right. Each idea mentioned above is taken from the commission report — a commission made up of corporate, labor and government leaders, tea-party conservatives, moderates and liberal Democrats whose findings, unfortunately, were dismissed by the president and congressional leadership.

I, along with my freshman colleagues, came to Washington indifferent to who gets the credit and unwilling to equate "changing the conversation" with progress. I do not care whether an idea has a "D" next to it or an "R." Good policy makes good politics. I have no problem giving credit where credit is due.

You see, when all is said and done, I would rather lose an election than have any child worry that he or she is a burden to a parent worried about losing a job.

I would rather champion a good idea regardless of where it came from than have any child forgo playing baseball, taking dance class or learning to play an instrument because of hearing Mom and Dad talking about being unable to make ends meet.

In the end, when I look at my kids and grandkids, I never want to tell them I mortgaged their future and diminished their nation because I was too concerned about who got the credit.