Sunday, March 06, 2011

"Deep Spending Cuts"

"A leading Democrat is predicting the Senate will reject House Republicans' deep budget cuts.
...

Senate Democrats has offered a measure that would trim $6.5 billion from domestic agencies, as President Barack Obama has proposed. That comes in response to a House-passed bill that would cut $61 billion from the federal budget." (News Story)

The cuts are in a $3.8 trillion budget. The proposed "deep cuts" of $61 billion are less than two percent of that.

16 comments:

Dave Orr said...

It seems to me that both sides have an incentive to make the cuts look huge: the Republicans want that because it impresses their base, and the Democrats want that because they want to energize their own base to fight against the proposed cuts.

So when both sides want to make them look huge... they're sure gonna.

Atlanta Roofing said...

How does the public support spending reduction? The public supports TAXING THE RICH. Yes – poll after poll show this. The public supports protecting the social safety net. The public supports funding our schools, protecting our environment, social security, medicare, consumer protection, regulating Wall St.The public wants JOBS. The notion that the public supports the Republican JOB-KILLING budget cuts is B.S.The public will be out in the street opposing the Republican assault on the Middle Class. From the Middle East to the MidWest – to all of Middle Class America – you will see opposition to the Richest of the Rich running roughshod over the rest of us.

Doc Merlin said...

Everyone on the right-winged blogosphere realizes that the cuts are non-serious. Its rather puzzling why they are so tiny.

Perry Metzger said...

I'm amazed by people saying, with a straight face, that a reduction of 2% in the federal budget would have any significant effect (in either direction) on the economy. One wonders what mental model they're using here for how this large effect (in either direction) would happen...

joetote said...

Our elected officials are nothing more than prostitutes anymore. They pay us lip service while reaching behind their backs to get their palms greased. Until that changes, there is little hope.

Hell, the GAO identified how much waste (200 billion or more I think) just in redundant programs, etc. and they even refuse to address that. No cajones as they’d have to cut a non-producing worker or 2.

Obama is one of the chief apologists for a policy that is doomed to fail! Now, the the hard left morons in charge have turned loose their union attack dogs and openly question what right a person has to their hard earned income and not one word from Comrade Obama or the Durbans of the world. We are in deep doo doo kiddies!

Johnny Mac said...

Who cares if we have massive deficits? That's a problem for our kids.

Just like global warming, fuck 'em. Let's leave the problem for our kids. They'll have flying cars and smart pills anyway so they'll be way better off than we are even if we leave them with a hellish environment and massive debts to pay back.

Kid said...

What is the hardest for me to understand, about all of politics, is that it boils down to a really harsh fight between 'left' and 'right' where people in your camp are forgiven almost anything, and people in the opposing camp never taken seriously. In a climate like this, there will be not be any serious progress.

Why does the entirety of useful political viewpoints have to be represented as simply as "left" or "right"? It's ridiculous when you think about it. I don't understand why people still bother.

TheVidra said...

Well, I believe the US can still spend like a drunken sailor as long as its military is strong enough; this way, if the society is on the verge of collapse, the government can just default on its debt, and eventually convince other entities by force (or threat) to keep on funding it. Despite all the rhetoric, might is right. Albeit, due to selfish reasons, I'd rather have the US (or the EU down the road) be the powerful bully than the Soviets or Pakistan or even China...

TheVidra said...

As far as setting up a long-term sustainable republic, the founding fathers got it right up to a certain degree, but not perfectly right; it's within the system set up by them that this political game is leading to incentives to constantly increase spending. In the defense of the framers of the country, so far the republic has held on for a long-enough time, but I bet it could have lasted longer had they included a clause to never ever under any circumstance allow the provision for the universal vote; they should have been aware of the moral hazard unleashed by the universal vote (but again, they probably never imagined humans capable of such folly).

Johnny Exchange said...

Regardless of all the noise, I think the voting public is ready to see serious budget cuts, including in entitlements. There are going to be massive protests from the left that will energize their base, but the conservative base and those who understand the danger to the next generations will do the right thing. The time has come to do the right thing.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, its time to cut the budget expenses in half: lets just abolish DOD and disband the military. Small government at its best.

Jess said...

It's smoke and mirrors. There is so much waste and special favors, any scrutiny of the budget will reveal the irresponsibility. Fact and figures be damned. They're doing it for the children.

Anonymous said...

I agree that it's all smoke and mirrors on the part of the right until they also put the military's crushing budget on the table for cuts, too. There's no reason for solely the USA to shoulder the role of world's policeman, funding bases/forces spotted all over the world, other than to protect the USA business/industrial/military interests. We should be getting our allies to start picking up some of the burden, if we think we still need democratic-leaning countries fueling bombers and carriers afar. When the right admits how much they depend on government and stops demonizing it -- anyone wanna bet how much investment there'll be in the stock market if the right has their way to abolish regulation and not punish those responsible for 2008's meltdown? -- then we can start some real budget-cutting talks. The left knows everyone needs to share the pain; the objections in Wisconsin and elsewhere are because the right is slashing into what they see as Democractic constituencies, and not doing the same for theirs; the right is not sharing the pain.

Anonymous said...

David, I saw you in NewHampshire last year. The Rand Paul 500 billlion cut plan is the one i would go with as soon as the votes are there (1-20-13).
We all have to stop grading our representatives by the amount of money the bring home. Don't we understand they had to steal it from us before returning it?
Do you know how strong our military would be if we had them all here. All the money we piss away on military bases could be saved.
Maybe a child running a lemonade stand could teach the fools in DC a thing or three.

Gray Woodland said...

I predict that a two percent cut in government budgets will result in much more than a two percent cut in most of the genuinely useful services presently provided by government.

The rent-seeking activities of government benefit primarily members of the government, and therefore will tend to be protected. The useful services benefit primarily the wider public, and therefore will bear more than their share of the cutting.

So I expect the cuts to feel much deeper, and do far more damage, than the raw percentage suggests. Alas, I see no obvious countervailing mechanism to magnify their benefits. I wonder what one might look like?

Don said...

Atlanta Roofing wrote:

"The public supports TAXING THE RICH. Yes – poll after poll show this. The public supports protecting the social safety net. The public supports funding our schools, protecting our environment, social security, medicare, consumer protection, regulating Wall St."

Wow! It turns out the "public" are identical to the typical NPR reporter. Who knew?

As for taxes, you in the public can relax. The rich's money is taxed many times (personal, corporate, capital gains, state, federal, and death taxes). So get yourself one of those Charlie Sheen shirts that say "Winning!"