This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, May 25, 2011. I'm Caleb Brown.

The former governor of Minnesota, Tim Palenti, visited the Kito Institute today to talk about

federal spending and how to get control of it.

Palenti discussed his own experience as a governor dealing with public sector workers,

their benefits, and their unions.

Our federal government is sinking in deficit and debt.

Our economy is sputtering the main pathway forward for most Americans in terms of their opportunity and their

well-being is a job.

So I want to focus on that and I also want to focus today on what it's going to take to get

the federal government better under control, including the benefits and

salaries of the people who are working the federal bureaucracy. Our federal

government in rough terms takes in about 2.2 trillion dollars a year and in terms of total federal outlays they put out about 3.7 trillion in

spending.

So think about that.

2.2 roughly in the door, 3.7 out the door. They're overspending by about 1.5 trillion dollars this year.

Roughly 40 cents of every dollar the federal government spends is a debt dollar, a deficit dollar. You can't run your families like that, you can't run

your businesses like that, and we certainly can't run the government like that, we can't do that

anymore, and there can't be any more sacred cows.

So in Iowa we have to look the good people of Iowa and the folks who are involved in agriculture

and otherwise involved in the ethanol industry and say because of this crushing debt and deficit load I'm sorry

but we're going to have to phase out the ethanol subsidies that the federal

government's been providing. We're going to have to say to the seniors in Florida and all over America,

...