Melissa Hart on Budget & Economy Former Republican Representative (PA-4, 2001-2007)

Voted YES on restricting bankruptcy rules.

Maintain & enforce existing spending caps in the future.

What we offer today are not the precise spending decisions of a given year's budget; rather, we call upon the Congress and the nation to adopt the following guidelines for our fiscal policy over the next decade. This long-term blueprint is essential for maintaining both the immediate public-sector goal of balancing the budget and the private-sector goal of a healthy economy. This can be achieved through the following steps:

• A commitment to maintaining and enforcing existing spending caps in the future, when such discipline becomes more difficult to achieve;
• A careful and considerate re-definition of the federal role in society (what should be the legitimate and proper role of the federal government in the twenty-first century, and how do we prioritize competing demands?); and
• An evaluation of implementing tax cuts based on their social fairness.