If you ran your household the way Washington runs its budget, you'd lose the house in eighteen months. South Carolina deserves a senator who can actually read a balance sheet.
If you ran your household the way Washington runs its budget, you'd lose the house in eighteen months. South Carolina deserves a senator who can actually read a balance sheet.
Imagine you had a family income of $100,000 a year. Your fixed spending on your home, utilities, medical, taxes, insurance, car and gas eats up $61,000 of your income.
You use credit cards, and interest eats up $13,000 per year. This leaves you with $26,000 per year you can spend on food, clothes, supplies and entertainment.
This year, again, you decide to increase your credit card debt. Just like last year, and every year of your life. Your total debt is $740,000. You decide this year you will limit your spending to only $7,000 more than you make.
I just described the Federal budget. Lindsey Graham is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. The highest public official with the power of the purse. His job? To set the country’s budget.
This is a big spreadsheet, and it takes more than a year, every year. He has never succeeded in setting a budget on time. Not once since 1996 has Congress set a budget and approved the 12 appropriations needed to keep the government running without shenanigans.
The biggest shenanigan is Continuing Resolutions. This is an agreement to keep on doing what we have always done because we ain’t gonna change. We’re cool with paying more interest, and we don’t have the motivation to stop any spending. Democrat and Republicans have been in control for decades, and have failed equally.
Here’s an idea. Use AI to create the existing spreadsheet. Then ask which spending lines have not been revisited in the 2000’s. Then ask how spending in each line has increased since 1996 (the last year Congress approved a budget, and 12 appropriations bills, and reached a balanced budget target). Then, compare that to corporate spending changes since 1996. Where inefficiencies are found, outsource it.
Here’s another idea. Stop viewing health care as repair, and start viewing it as preventative maintenance. Give people access to basic preventative checkups and prescriptions to stop massive spending on organ surgeries and catastrophic failures. Medicare and Medicaid costs could drop instead of going up. We proved it in the company I managed.
Lindsey Graham has no new ideas, and he is the most powerful dude in the Congress on spending controls. He chairs the Budget Committee. He is on the Appropriations Committee. And as a senior leader, he has not crossed the finish line once in his career.
He does have strengths. He knows how to get elected. His campaign strategy is to bad mouth anyone who has ideas, and defend his record. He claims credit for any federal money that comes to South Carolina. He claims credit for judges in place yet there are 10 nominees not yet confirmed, and he takes an average of 75 days to get confirmations, as a senior leader who sits on the judiciary committee.
He doesn’t create an annual budget in less than a year. He doesn’t appropriate spending for the year before the year starts. He doesn’t confirm judges quickly. He is not an effective leader.
But, he is an effective fundraiser. He has $20 million to spend dominating the media. The media love to give him time, because he pays them a lot. And here’s the best part. 9% of his campaign funding came from South Carolina.
He is likely to win the GOP primary. Here’s why. Less than a third of SC’s 3.3 million voters will vote in the primary. The estimate is 900,000. 730,000 will be GOP voters. The other 170,000 will be Democrat voters. But Democrats seem to have a boring race, with Annie Andrews as the favorite. Lindsey has to get 51% to avoid a runoff, or 365,000 votes. It is estimated he will pull as many as 70,000 votes from Democrats who see him as easier to beat in the general election. He only has to get 295,000 GOP votes. His PAC buddies will match his $20M on hand. So $40M will go toward mud slinging in the media attacking any good person who runs against him. He will spend $135 per vote. And won’t throw out a single new idea.
Here’s an idea. Take the time to go vote on June 9. No matter if you are enthused or sickened. I have spoken to thousands of people in the past 90 days campaigning as an independent who feels disenfranchised from the Red Blue do nothing standoff. So far, I have spoken with 3 Lindsey Graham supporters. One is a long time elected official who wants to stay in office the rest of his life. One is a bag boy at a grocery store. And one is a facilities manager at a university. That’s all. South Carolinians need to unite. Democrats and Republicans and Independents can replace Lindsey Graham.
I will continue to share the logical viewpoint of an independent until November. You won’t see me in the media because I am not spending money. I am not accepting donations. My currency is ideas, word of mouth, and social media. I am DonForUSSenate.com. I am voting against Lindsey Graham June 9th, and if needed November 3rd. If Lindsey is on the ballot in November, I ask you for your vote.
By Don Louis · Published 2026-04-26