Q. The U.S. is running a $1.4 trillion deficit this year and has a national debt of nearly $12 trillion. What is your prescription to return to a balanced budget? Do you support or oppose extending federal tax cuts that are due to expire in 2010? What priorities would you set for spending cuts? Please be specific.

A. My prescription for bringing down the deficit, reducing the debt, and ultimately returning to a balanced budget is a combination of tax cuts and spending reductions. Government is too big and we can’t afford the government we have now. Reduced tax rates across the board will increase economic activity and bolster government revenues. This has been demonstrated over and over from Kennedy, to Reagan, to Bush. In each case, government revenues increased from decreased tax rates. The deficits that resulted in each of these administrations were the result of increased spending, not decreased revenues. I would certainly not add to our deficit by expanding government involvement in health care or adding to the already bloated entitlements of Medicare and Medicaid. I would redirect unused stimulus money to tax cuts. I also support continuing the tax cuts that are currently set to expire in 2010. Letting those tax cuts expire is effectively the same as a tax increase that would hit small businesses the hardest. Small businesses produce 80% of all new jobs in our economy and have proven time and again to be the engine of both economic recovery and job recovery in hard economic times. Raising taxes on them now is pure economic folly. The Federal budget is bloated and our debts and deficits threaten our economic recovery and our place in the world economy. I would specifically call for across the board cuts in government spending with the exception of the military and I would support the difficult process of entitlement reform.