Page 238 - TrumpsEconEra_Flat

13: WHAT TO DO?

resident Reagan established the Grace
PCommission in 1984. For two years, 160
corporate executives and community leaders led an
army of 2,000 volunteers to root out government waste.
Volunteer contributors with zero cost to the federal
government funded the search. The Grace Commission
made 2,478 recommendations to cut costs without
eliminating essential services. The Grace Commission
is a document that covers 21,000 pages laying out a
detailed plan to make the federal government more
efficient and accountable to the American taxpayer.
Congress passed the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings
Act in 1985 as a follow-up to the Grace Commission,
otherwise known as the Balanced Budget and
Emergency Deficit Control Act. This act made it
mandatory for the government to live within its income.
The law provided for automatic spending cuts to take
effect if the president and Congress failed to reach
established spending targets. The act gave the U.S.
comptroller general authority to order spending cuts
when necessary to meet the stated goals. The courts

-237-