Courtesy Photo­Image Kerrey

As Deb Fischer and Bob Kerrey trade attack ads in the final weeks of the campaign, Kerrey took time last week to announce a plan to cut federal spending.

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Kerrey called for $1.13 trillion in cuts, many of them over and above the amount of automatic cuts that would take effect in January if Congress does not come up with a definite plan.

Kerrey said Congress and White House should lead in cutting costs by freezing wages and reducing staff.

Bob Kerrey will be at the North Platte Regional Airport at 2 p.m. Monday, part of a campaign trip around the state. He is scheduled to stay for 45 minutes.

In keeping with the evermore common approach to spreading cuts out over 10 years, Kerrey’s cuts would also take place during the next decade.

Kerrey would cut the budgets of Congress and the White House by 15%, cut the federal workforce by 15% and reduce the number of federal contractors by 15%. Doing that would save nearly $240 billion in a decade, he said.

Kerrey would freeze Congressional wages for three years, reduce federal travel and printing by 20 percent and sell unused federal property within three years.

The rest of the cuts would come from implementing the Simpson-Bowles committee’s recommendations, which curb federal spending by $345 billion more than the so-called “sequestration” by a Congressional super-committee, which is a mix of cuts to social programs and military spending.

Also, Kerrey called for:

• Reforms to federal IT management and closure of federal computer data centers, saving $200 billion.

• Elimination of government offices that primarily function to consult with television and film productions. That would save $34.4 million, he said.

Kerrey said Fischer is sticking to her talking points and skating through the campaign without proposing any solutions.

Kerrey has also spelled out cuts and reforms he favors, and helped develop, to save Social Security and Medicare.

“I have a record of bi-partisan support,” he said. “I’ve balanced the budget before and I know how to get the job done.”

“The only way we are going to fix Washington is through bi-partisan cooperation and that is why I have endorsed Republican proposals and today, have offered more spending cuts of my own,” Kerrey said.