Tom Cambell deficit hawk?

He wants to:

We also need leaders in the House, Senate, and White House who agree that the time is now, and the responsibility is ours. I propose that we not only restore Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, but that we dramatically cut the federal budget deficit proposed by the President by more than half. We not only can achieve this, we must.

Here’s how we can achieve this:

First, cap non-defense discretionary spending to fiscal year 2009 levels for a savings of $101 billion. The White House Budget caps this item at fiscal year 2010 levels of $690 billion, but this category already grew from $589 billion in fiscal year 2009—a 30 percent increase. They let it rise by 30 percent before deciding to cap it. We should cap it at once.

To achieve this overall cap, many specific budget items in this category could be eliminated entirely including the $3 billion annual expenditure in subsidies for corn ethanol. And we should sell the portfolio of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and end any future government subsidies for them.

There is no evidence that the stimulus bill has produced the 2 million new jobs the President claims, over what the private sector would have produced if the same funds had been allowed to stay with the private sector. Yet the White House proposes increasing the amount spent from $202 billion in [delete FY] fiscal year 2009 to $353 billion in fiscal year 2010 and $232 billion in fiscal year 2011. I propose cutting this increase in spending over fiscal year 2009 in half for a savings of $292 billion.

This savings could be used to forgive the FICA tax for businesses that hire employees who have been out of work for at least two moths. Add this amount to the $33 billion the President has already proposed for tax relief to small business hiring, and we will have increased targeted assistance for new jobs ten-fold

Use the TARP money the banks are returning to pay down the debt for a savings of $200 billion. The money was approved for a specific purpose: to buy the bad mortgages from banks. Since the banks are now returning the money, it should be used to reduce our federal borrowing. It’s not “free money,” available for other uses, as the White House has proposed.

Medicaid and SCHIP are 7 percent of the federal budget and spending in this category rose nearly 30 percent from fiscal year 2009 to fiscal year 2010. We need to approach Medicaid and SCHIP the way we did welfare in 1996: don’t trim at the edges but announce that there will be a cap and stick with it. Doing so would save $45 billion.

Taken together, these proposals would save an estimated $750 billion in fiscal year 2010 alone, well more than half of the entire projected deficit. The time to act is now. The clock is running — for our children, our national security and America’s greatness.

Unusual for a Republican to do anything but run up deficits, we will see.