The 2007 Solution: Senator LeMieux's Plan for the Federal Budget

Republican senator George LeMieux of Florida has done the math. If government spending were reduced to its 2007 level, wed have a balanced budget (with a $163 billion surplus). Returning to the 2008 level of spending, the budget would be balanced in 2014 (a $133 billion surplus). And in both cases, thats while keeping the Bush tax cuts across the board and indexing the loathed alternative minimum tax for inflation.

Could we live with what we did in 2007? LeMieux asksthe we a collective reference to Congress, the federal government, and the country. He thinks so. Because of the recession, most Americans are living with less than they had in 2007.

LeMieuxs ideas on curbing spending havent gotten much attention. Thats because of who he is, a 40-year-old appointed rather than elected senator filling out the final 16 months of the term of Mel Martinez, who resigned. Hes not running for election this November. In fact, hes never been elected to any office. (Nor is he related to Mario Lemieux, the hockey legend.)

When LeMieux arrived in Washington last September, he was struckappalled, reallyby one thing. You come in thinking Washington is out of control, he says. And spending is out of control. But its actually much worse than that. After working as chief of staff for Florida governor Charles Crist, then managing a large law firm in Ft. Lauderdale, LeMieux found the spending habits on Capitol Hill bizarre.

It stands in sharp contrast to what the real world is like, he says. For the state government in Florida, the biggest thing in town is the quarterly report of how much revenue has been collected. We could only spend what was coming in.

Not so in Washington. No one asks what were taking in, LeMieux says. And no one gauges how much to spend based on that amount. After a while you get used to it, he says. At least he assumes thats what occurs. LeMieux hopes that doesnt happen to him. I havent bought in, he says. He wont be in Washington long enough to become inured to the spending binge.

When he talks to fellow senators about the need to slash spending, LeMieux thinks some of them dismiss his fervor as the result of inexperience. Hell learn soon enough we dont do that kind of stuff herethats the way they regard him, LeMieux suspects. And hes probably right.

He prefers the Florida approach, which is similar to what other states do to meet their balanced budget requirement. In 2007, storm clouds of the looming recession began to appear. With diminishing revenue, the state could do three things: cut spending, raise taxes, or find new sources of tax revenue.

The state began to pare its budget, from $73 billion in 2006 to $70 billion in 2007 and even lower to $66.5 billion last year. As the law mandates, there was no deficit. LeMieux cites this as the opposite of the Washington practice. Estimated spending for 2010 is $3.8 trillion based on revenue of $2.2 trillion, leaving a humongous $1.6 trillion deficit.

After four months in Washington, LeMieux is willing to support anything to bend the spending curve. Last week, he joined Republican senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn in seeking a yearlong ban on earmarks, which fund special projects for individual states or congressional districts. Ive made the decision to voluntarily disarm, he says. Hell propose no earmarks for Florida.

Personally Yours: Paper clips? Nah, the CFO should cut back on flacks

Paper clips are among my favorite office supplies.

Paper clips, rubber bands and rulers, although a ruler - with which you can measure, draw a straight line and slice paper without jagged edges - is in a different category because you only need one. You need many paper clips and many rubber bands. I have a 3-inch ball of rubber bands of various hues. I know because I measured the diameter with my ruler.

I have two boxes of 300 paper clips in my News-Press desk and two boxes in my home office desk. I received them as Christmas presents a year ago, along with the rubber band ball. Great gifts! It is seriously comforting to know you are not going to run out of either clips or bands at a critical moment.

It is a level of comfort I suspect is shared by the 2,000 employees of the Florida Office of Financial Services, which goes through $200 million a year in total expenses.

It was revealed this week, via a press release written by one of the office's four public relations staffers, that the financial services people have 537 pounds of paper clips. That's 400,000 individual clips - 200 for every employee.

The point of the news release was that Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, who must not like her job because she really wants to be governor, has so many paper clips and their ilk that she has ordered a halt to buying "non-mission-critical" office supplies.

She estimates, according to Communications Director Kyra Jennings, that cutting out buying the paper clips and such will save $200,000 a year, or about a tenth of a percent. And she has called on all of Florida government offices to do the same, claiming a potential savings of $14 million.

For years now, I've had a little contest with myself. I keep track of the paper clips that come in from people who send me papers clipped together versus the ones that go out on papers I clip together. It is a running total. I am always ahead. Right now, I have four clips in the in/out bin in my drawer - meaning I am up by four - and a whole bunch more on papers I have yet to unclip. I have never even opened the two boxes of 300.

That is cost-saving at its most efficient. The business office of The News-Press should give me an award.