Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
On May 11, 2011, I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:
Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner. I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.
Consolidating duplicative programs will save money and improve government service. Merging related block grants will give states more flexibility to target their funds. The new Department of Homeland Security provides one example of a successful consolidation of separate agencies and programs. A recently announced consolidation of the 22 different federal payroll systems into just two will save $1.2 billion over the next decade. At the state level, governors such as Virginia’s Mark Warner (D) are proposing consolidations that will save hundreds of millions of dollars.
Except for those that should be eliminated altogether, Congress should consolidate the following sets28 of programs:
342 economic development programs;
130 programs serving the disabled;
130 programs serving at-risk youth;
90 early childhood development programs;
75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities;
72 federal programs dedicated to assuring safe water;
50 homeless assistance programs;
45 federal agencies conducting federal criminal investigations;
40 separate employment and training programs;
28 rural development programs;
27 teen pregnancy programs;
26 small, extraneous K-12 school grant programs;
23 agencies providing aid to the former Soviet republics;
19 programs fighting substance abuse;
17 rural water and waste-water programs in eight agencies;
17 trade agencies monitoring 400 international trade agreements;
If you wanted to get serious about budget cuts then why not eliminate the Dept of Education. These budget cuts mentioned below in the budget are just peanuts. We should have meaningful budget cuts that would BALANCE THE BUDGET.
The president’s fiscal 2013 budget includes a 213 page document that contains 210 proposed cuts, consolidations, and other savings. That sounds like a lot until one finds out that the alleged savings would only amount to $24 billion in a $3.8 trillion budget. Not only would the cuts do little to reduce the size of government, they would do nothing to reign in the scope of government.
The following are a few examples of what I’m talking about:
The administration proposes to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Automotive Technology program for savings of $16 million. However, the proposed cut doesn’t reflect a sudden desire to end federal “green” subsidies to car manufacturers. Instead, the administration says “other Federal programs are better positioned to research, develop, demonstrate, and deploy a broad suite of advanced vehicle technologies.”
The administration proposes to cut funding for the Department of Health and Human Service’s Community Services Block Grant program from $679 million to $350 million. The administration cites reports from the HHS inspector general and the Government Accountability Office that “have documented failures in program oversight and accountability.” However, instead of proposing to completely terminate it, the administration says it’s going to fix the program and basically apologizes for having to cut it to meet discretionary spending caps.
The administration proposes to cut funding by $226 million for fossil fuel subsidies administered by the Department of Energy. These subsidies should be eliminated. But they should be eliminated along with all energy subsidies because the federal government should stop trying to pick winners and losers in the energy market. Unfortunately, it appears that the administration is really only interested in scoring political points with the “green” crowd.
The administration proposes to save a whopping $3 million by terminating the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s public broadcasting grant program. The administration correctly points out that the program is duplicative of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. However, the CPB would get another $1 million in funding for an overall budget of $445 million. In other words, the proposed cut would have practically no effect on the federal government’s subsidization of PBS and NPR.
I could go on and on with examples but there’s no point. A glass-half-full type might say, “Well, at least the administration is proposing to cut something.” Unfortunately, the glass is nowhere close to being half full – it’s empty. The administration’s relatively paltry savings would still leave the budget with a projected deficit of $901 billion for fiscal 2013. And the deficit would only be smaller than last year because the government is projected to take in more revenue – not because the government would spend less. Worse, the federal government under this budget would continue to be an intrusive, metastasizing cancer on individual liberty and the economy.
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.Sincerely,Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
On Bloomberg, Sessions Discusses Astounding Gimmicks In President’s Budget
John Brummett in his article “Prospects for 2014,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 27, 2012, (paywall) fears that potential governor Mark Darr “and his insurgent ilk, favorites of the Koch brothers, would shrink state government to lower taxes on the well-to-do, deregulate business and free poor people to navigate amid the lower taxes and unfettered commercial enterprises.”
Let us take Brummett’s conclusions and see if that is the type of world that we want to live in. Mark Darr wants to “free poor people to navigate amid the lower taxes and unfettered commercial enterprises.” I wonder what that would be like?
A version of this column appeared originally in THE DAILY BEAST.
Do proposed cuts in federal programs threaten to deny the downtrodden any chance for “a meaningful and productive life,” as claimed by one of the most prominent progressives in Congress?
The question is preposterous and the answer is obvious: long before Washington created such programs, millions of underprivileged citizens found ways to climb out of poverty and to build decent homes and brighter futures for their families.
But the office of Representative Andre Carson of Indiana issued a statement insisting that the “Tea Party agenda jeopardizes our most vulnerable and leaves them without the ability to improve their economic standing.” Jason Tomcsi, Carson’s official spokesman, made these claims in an e-mail to the press, attempting to explain previous remarks in which the Congressman told an approving crowd in Miami at a Congressional Black Caucus event that “some of them in Congress right now of this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me hanging on a tree.”
This outrageous accusation led Representative Alan West of Florida, one of two African-American Republicans in the House, to threaten to remove himself from the Congressional Black Caucus.
But while Carson’s office refused to apologize and stood behind the admittedly “strong language” in the charges of murderous Tea Party racism, their defense actually compounded the problem by insulting not just conservative activists, but smearing every American who receives federal assistance. To suggest that budget cuts would leave them “without the ability to improve their economic standing” suggests that recipients of government aid aren’t just “vulnerable” but helpless.
According to the official explanation, Carson’s “hanging on a tree” comment came “in response to frustration voiced by many in Miami and in his home district in Indianapolis regarding Congress’s inability to bolster the economy.”
Leaving aside the questionable notion that our political and economic system actually allows Congress to “bolster the economy”, the statement entered even more dubious territory by declaring: “We are talking about child nutrition, job creation, job training, housing assistance and Head Start, and this is just the beginning. A child without basic nutrition, secure housing, and quality education has no real chance at a meaningful and productive life.”
In other words, the many children who currently lack these advantages (despite lavish federal funding for programs meant to provide them) might as well give up, not only abandoning efforts to compete with kids from more fortunate backgrounds, but also renouncing all hopes for a life worth living.
Fortunately, Carson’s own grandmother – the late Congresswoman Julia Carson – never accepted that message. Born in Kentucky in 1938, long before the Civil Rights revolution or the costly Great Society programs her grandson now defends, she worked her way up to a job as a secretary in a union office, and then won a position in the Indiana Legislature.
My own grandfather, Harry Medved, had less success in the US after his 1910 immigration from Ukraine. He worked as a barrel-maker his entire life but somehow managed to raise a son (my father) who made his way through college and graduate school. My grandparents (who I remember vividly) would have laughed at the notion that they depended on generous funding from governmental bureaucracies for the chance they seized to create a “meaningful and productive life.”
On most occasions when Democrats and Republicans fight over the value of federal anti-poverty efforts they argue about the effectiveness of these programs. Many conservatives believe that these well-intentioned initiatives often do more damage than good because they foster a sense of dependence and discourage individual initiative and accountability, while most liberals insist that government plays a useful role in assisting the poor. But Carson’s statement suggesting that disadvantaged families are hopeless and helpless without Washington’s sustaining, life-giving hand–that they can’t possibly move ahead on their own without federal intervention–conveys a dismissive view of the poor that might be considered racist and bigoted had it come from a white conservative.
Moreover, the wildly exaggerated view of government’s power to transform lives, and the sad contention that the impoverished can’t possibly change their circumstances with any other form of aid, combine to illustrate the profound truth in an observation by best-selling author and radio host, Rabbi Daniel Lapin. “The Democratic Party is filled with ardent idealists who have decided to worship the little g – government – and feel uncomfortable with any worship of the big G – God.”
Though Congressman Carson presents himself as a devout Muslim, his recent comments leave no doubt as to which “g” inspires his deepest faith and most fervent prayers.
Michael Medved
Michael Medved’s daily syndicated radio talk show reaches one of the largest national audiences every weekday between 3 and 6 PM, Eastern Time. Michael Medved is the author of eleven books, including the bestsellers What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?, Hollywood vs. America, Right Turns, The Ten Big Lies About America and 5 Big Lies About American Business
I’ll have more to say later on Mitt Romney’s speech on federal spending, but his banal call for making government more “efficient” gave me an opportunity to share some good commentary on the subject. In a recent piece criticizing Indiana’s Republican-led state government for not doing “anything substantive to improve Indiana’s budgetary, fiscal or economic position,” Craig Ladwig, editor of the Indiana Policy Review, nails it:
Most troubling of all is that few in the leadership of either party share our belief that government must be kept small for smallness’ sake. The goal is not to run it “like a business” or make it more efficient (consolidate), but to ensure that government is simple enough that average citizens can understand and monitor its workings. The constitutional ability to do that and a passion for self-government (governing one’s self), thereby reaping the rewards and accepting the consequences, are what is meant by American exceptionalism.
Nor does the current leadership appreciate that government cannot by nature be proactively involved in prosperity, that it cannot create wealth but only refrain from taking it away or destroying it. Even Republicans busy themselves in such neo-mercantile schemes as tax rebates for politically favored companies and industries, or training programs to win more contracts from the federal government. At the same time, they slap a tax on entrepreneurial activity as soon as it finds success, most recently in Internet commerce.
Look, Democrats already work tirelessly to extract from us the revenue to support a bloated, systemically flawed and misguided state government. Do they need Republican help?
Milton Friedman famously described those trying to reform government without changing its makeup as being engaged in an attempt to transform a cat into a dog. This General Assembly may learn to bark, but it will still be a cat.
The “government efficiency” snake-oil salesmanship from politicians has become tiresome, especially when it comes from high-profile Republicans like Mitch Daniels and Mitt Romney. Unfortunately, I don’t see too many people “on the right” taking these people to task for it. So kudos to Craig.
A big majority of Americans are concerned about growing income inequality and government favor for the rich, and they understand that lower taxes do directly affect federal budget deficits, which Republican orthodoxy for 30 years has denied.
However, I like most Republicans would argue the problem is spending and not taxes. Take a look at this video and article from the Cato Institute concerning Illinios’ recent experience.
I’m mystified, though, why some Republicans are willing to walk into such a trap. If you were playing chess against someone, and that person kept pleading with you to make a certain move, wouldn’t you be a tad bit suspicious that your opponent really wasn’t trying to help you win?
When I talk to the Republicans who are open to tax hikes, they sometimes admit that their party will suffer at the polls for agreeing to the hikes, but they say it’s the right thing to do because of all the government red ink.
I suppose that’s a noble sentiment, though I find that most GOPers who are open to tax hikes also tend to be big spenders, so I question their sincerity (with Senator Coburn being an obvious exception).
But even if we assume that all of them are genuinely motivated by a desire to control deficits and debt, shouldn’t they be asked to provide some evidence that higher taxes are an effective way of fixing the fiscal policy mess?
I’m not trying to score debating points. This is a serious question.
European nations, for instance, have been raising taxes for decades, almost always saying the higher taxes were necessary to balance budgets and control red ink. Yet that obviously hasn’t worked. Europe’s now in the middle of a fiscal crisis.
Run up spending and debt, raise taxes in the naming of balancing the budget, but then watch as deficits rise and your credit-rating falls anyway. That’s been the sad pattern in Europe, and now it’s hitting that mecca of tax-and-spend government known as Illinois.
…Moody’s downgraded Illinois state debt to A2 from A1, the lowest among the 50 states. That’s worse even than California.
…This wasn’t supposed to happen. Only a year ago, Governor Pat Quinn and his fellow Democrats raised individual income taxes by 67% and the corporate tax rate by 46%. They did it to raise $7 billion in revenue, as the Governor put it, to “get Illinois back on fiscal sound footing” and improve the state’s credit rating. So much for that.
…And—no surprise—in part because the tax increases have caused companies to leave Illinois, the state budget office confesses that as of this month the state still has $6.8 billion in unpaid bills and unaddressed obligations.
In other words, higher taxes led to fiscal deterioration in Illinois, just as tax increases in Europe have been followed by bad outcomes.
Whenever any politician argues in favor of a higher tax burden, just keep these two points in mind:
1. Higher taxes encourage more government spending.
The combination of these two factors explains why higher taxes make things worse rather than better. And they explain why Europe is in trouble and why Illinois is in trouble.
The relevant issue is whether the crowd in Washington should copy those failed examples. As this video explains, higher taxes are not the solution.
This Economics 101 video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity gives seven reasons why the political elite are wrong to push for more taxes. If allowed to succeed, the hopelessly misguided pushing to raise taxes would only worsen our fiscal mess while harming the economy.
The seven reasons provided by the video against this approach are as follows:
1) Tax increases are not needed;
2) Tax increases encourage more spending;
3) Tax increases harm economic performance;
4) Tax increases foment social discord;
5) Tax increases almost never raise as much revenue as projected;
6) Tax increases encourage more loopholes; and,
7) Tax increases undermine competitiveness
You don’t need to log on to President Barack Obama’s Facebook page to find out who his friends are, and you don’t need to read tea leaves, gaze into a crystal ball, or consult a psychic to learn where his priorities lie. No, you only have to take a look at his 2013 budget, just released on Monday, to see what kind of company the president keeps and to what extent he will go to lend his pals a helping hand.
The folks seated at the president’s head table haven’t changed much in the past few years — the only difference is how much is being served up in the taxpayer-funded buffet. As in the past, the president has plenty of handouts for his big labor buddies. His budget delivers a fourth consecutive annual deficit exceeding $1 trillion — and that spending goes to yet another round of not-so-shovel-ready construction projects and government “investments” totaling $178 billion. Heritage’s Patrick Knudsen writes that the spending includes the president’s favored road, bridge, and school construction projects, but “then they go alarmingly beyond the usual ‘infrastructure’ arguments to fund teachers’ pay.” In other words, unions representing the construction site and the classroom win big.
Other winners in the president’s budget are those who fit into the Administration’s vision of a green economy that is propelled not by the market’s demand, but by Obama’s whim. The 2013 budget proposes to spend $310 million to make solar energy cost-competitive without subsidies by 2020, $290 million to expand R&D on energy efficient manufacturing techniques, and $421 million in fossil energy research and development. Heritage energy expert Nicolas Loris writes that the budget “rejects the notion of a market-based energy industry and wastes taxpayer dollars at a time when we desperately need to curtail out-of-control spending.” In other words, he says, the president’s blueprint is all wrong.
There’s no clearer example of just how wrong the president’s blueprint is than his decision to increase subsidies for electric vehicles like the $41,000 Chevy Volt while ending funding for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP), which gives low-income children in the nation’s capital a chance to escape underperforming schools. The White House intends to increase taxpayer-funded subsidies for those who purchase new-technology vehicles to $10,000 per buyer, up from $7,500. Keep in mind that the average income of a Volt buyer is $175,000 per year. That means that middle-class taxpayers are helping the rich buy pricy, politically correct cars.
With his other hand, President Obama is taking from the poor. The DCOSP provides $8,000 vouchers to 1,600 low-income children in the District of Columbia, empowering them to attend a school that they choose. The program has been a stunning success — though it has drawn criticism from the president’s teachers union allies. If the president gets his way, those children will pay the price.
They won’t be the only ones in their generation, though, who will suffer under the president’s budget. From a big picture perspective, the president’s budget rises from $3.8 trillion to $5.8 trillion in 2022. Putting that into context, that means outlays above 22 percent of gross domestic product — more than twice the New Deal’s share of the economy in its peak years. In constant dollars, outlays are more than three times the peak of World War II. With all that spending, someone will have to pay for it. Whose names will be on the bill? Those under 30 — America’s debt-paying generation. Their entire lives will be dominated by paying down today’s mountains of debt. And some of them are waking up to that fact.
“It will be my generation, rather than the retiring baby boomers, that will be paying off the national debt through higher income taxes,” says Amanda Winkler, 24, a Master’s Student at American University. Shaun Rabenius, 26, is a part-time construction worker and student. He says, “I have never followed politics much, except for when I vote. But in looking at the last decade, the presidencies, and the debt they have accumulated, I am scared out of my mind.”
They’re right to be worried. With a Senate that hasn’t passed a budget in well over 1,000 days and a president who seems intent on spending more, not less, without addressing the country’s underlying budgetary crisis, future generations will soon find that the winners today will make them losers tomorrow.
____
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion).
On my blog www.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. However, I did not see any of them in the recent debt deal that Congress adopted. Now I am trying another approach. Every week from now on I will send you an email explaining different reasons why we need the Balanced Budget Amendment. It will appear on my blog on “Thirsty Thursday” because the government is always thirsty for more money to spend.
Many of the politicians in Washington, including President Obama during his State of the Union address, piously tell us that there is no way to balance the budget without tax increases. Trying to get rid of red ink without higher taxes, they tell us, would require “savage” and “draconian” budget cuts.
The Congressional Budget Office has just released its 10-year projections for the budget, so I crunched the numbers to determine what it would take to balance the budget without tax hikes. Much to nobody’s surprise, the politicians are not telling the truth.
The chart below shows that revenues are expected to grow (because of factors such as inflation, more population, and economic expansion) by more than 7 percent each year. Balancing the budget is simple so long as politicians increase spending at a slower rate. If they freeze the budget, we almost balance the budget by 2017. If federal spending is capped so it grows 1 percent each year, the budget is balanced in 2019. And if the crowd in Washington can limit spending growth to about 2 percent each year, red ink almost disappears in just 10 years.
These numbers, incidentally, assume that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are made permanent (they are now scheduled to expire in two years). They also assume that the AMT is adjusted for inflation, so the chart shows that we can balance the budget without any increase in the tax burden.
We also have international evidence showing that spending restraint – not higher taxes – is the key to balancing the budget. New Zealand got rid of a big budget deficit in the 1990s with a five-year spending freeze. Canada also got rid of red ink that decade with a five-year period where spending grew by an average of only 1 percent per year. And Ireland slashed its deficit in the late 1980s by 10 percentage points of GDP with a four-year spending freeze.
Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.
In a town where bipartisan budget chicanery has been raised to an art form, President Obama’s latest budget proposal should be hailed as the da Vinci of fiscal obfuscation.
The president claims that his budget proposal reduces debt by $4 trillion over the next 10 years, combining $2.4 trillion in spending cuts with $1.6 trillion in tax hikes. Almost none of that is true.
Let’s start with the idea that the president’s budget would reduce the debt. That is true only using Washington math, under which a smaller increase is actually a decrease. In reality, the president’s budget adds $6.7 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years, bringing it to nearly $25.5 trillion by 2022. That would be more than 100 percent of our GDP.
The president’s budget is dishonest and irresponsible.
And those spending cuts? The president actually counts $681 billion in cuts that were agreed to last year as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling. Shouldn’t there be some sort of statute of limitations for how long you can claim credit for cuts that you have already made? And it should probably be shorter for cuts that you fought against every step of the way. The president also counts as a cut the $741 billion we will save from not occupying Iraq over the next 10 years, and from not being in Afghanistan a decade from now. Considering that we were never going to spend that money in the first place, that seems like slightly dishonest accounting. After all, think of all the savings we can claim by not invading Syria. And, finally, $595 billion of the claimed budget cuts is actually interest savings resulting from not having to borrow for the other phony cuts.
On the other hand, the president’s budget does include plenty of new spending. For example, there is $476 billion in new spending over 10 years for transportation projects, including the president’s favorite boondoggle, “high-speed rail.” There are also the usual bailouts for profligate state governments and teachers’ unions, including $30 billion to build more schools and $30 billion to hire teachers. Another stimulus anyone?
Overall, the president would increase federal spending from $3.8 trillion in 2013 to $5.82 trillion in 2022. That might not be as big an increase there might otherwise be, but in no way can it be called a cut.
The president isn’t even honest about his tax proposals. In the speech announcing his budget plan, President Obama devoted several paragraphs to a renewed push for the so-called Buffett rule, a new 30 percent minimum tax on the rich, based on the misleading claim that Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. There is only one small problem: The president’s budget does not actually include any revenue from the Buffett rule. In fact, the budget provides no clue as to when or how such a tax might be implemented. The Buffett Rule isn’t even listed in the document’s summary of revenues and outlays. A cynic might believe that the Buffett Rule has more to do with campaign rhetoric than an actual budget plan.
Instead, what the budget does contain is a renewed call for tax increases on people and small businesses making as little as $200,000 per year. In addition, there’s the usual panoply of tax hikes on energy products, businesses, investment, and pretty much anything else the president can think of. The budget also helpfully points out that 2013 is the year in which most of the new taxes under Obamacare will take effect. Overall, the president would increase tax revenue to 20.1 percent of GDP. That’s a huge increase from the current 15.4 percent, and higher than the post–World War II average of 18.0 percent. Tax increases of that magnitude cannot help but slow economic growth and job creation.
But even if the president were to get every penny of the tax hikes he wants, his budget would never balance. The closest he would ever come would be in 2018, when the deficit would be only $575 billion. After that, deficits begin rising again, reaching $704 billion by 2022.
Fortunately for the president, he stops counting after 2022, about the time that the costs of entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security really begin to kick in, and his proposed budget does almost nothing to reform these troubled programs. One only has to look at the upward trajectory of both spending and taxes at the end of the budget window to see that president’s budget leaves us on the road to future bankruptcy.
Appearing last Sunday on Meet the Press, the president’s chief of staff — and former budget director — Jack Lew, declared that “The time for austerity is not now.” Judging by the president’s budget proposal, it’s not ever.
_____________
I don’t see any reductions in the debt but I do see a lot more tax and spend in your budget. Don’t you think we need to balance the budget now before we end up like Greece?
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.Sincerely,Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
I have faithfully sent spending cut suggestions to Senator Mark Pryor every Monday for almost a year now and at the same time I have posted all of them on www.thedailyhatch.org every monday after they have been sent electronically.
I have suggested cutting out the complete Dept of Education on several occasions.
GUIDELINE #4: Terminate failed, outdated, and irrelevant programs.
President Ronald Reagan once pointed out that “a government bureau is the closest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on earth.” A large portion of the current federal bureaucracy was created during the 1900s, 1930s, and 1960s in attempts to solve the unique problems of those eras.
Instead of replacing the outdated programs of the past, however, each period of government activism has built new programs on top of them. Ford Motor Company would not waste money today by building outdated Model T’s alongside their current Mustangs and Explorers. However, in 2004, the federal government still refuses to close down old agencies such as the Rural Utilities Service (designed to bring phones to rural America) and the U.S. Geological Survey (created to explore and detail the nation’s geography).
Government must be made light and flexible, adaptable to the new challenges the country will face in the 21st century. Weeding out the failed and outdated bureaucracies of the past will free resources to modernize the government.
Status Quo Bias. Lawmakers often acknowledge that certain programs show no positive effects. Regrettably, they also refuse to terminate even the most irrelevant programs. The most obvious reason for this timidity is an aversion to fighting the special interests that refuse to let their pet programs end without a bloody fight.
A less obvious reason is that eliminating government programs seems reckless and bold to legislators who have never known a federal government without them. Although thousands of programs have come and gone in the nation’s 228-year history, virtually all current programs were created before most lawmakers came to Washington. For legislators who are charged with budgeting and implementing the same familiar programs year after year, a sense of permanency sets in, and termination seems unfathomable.7 No one even remembers when a non-government entity addressed the problems.
The Department of Energy, for example, has existed for just one-tenth of the country’s history, yet closing it down seems ridiculous to those who cannot remember the federal government before 1977 and for whom appropriating and overseeing the department has been an annual ritual for years. Lawmakers need a long-term perspective to assure them the sky does not fall when a program is terminated. For example, the Bureau of Mines and the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration, both closed in 1996, are barely remembered today.8
Instead of just assuming that whoever created the programs decades ago must have been filling some important need that probably exists today, lawmakers should focus on the future by asking themselves the following question: If this program did not exist, would I vote to create it? Because the answer for scores of programs would likely be “no,” Congress should:
Close down failed or outdated agencies, programs, and facilities, including:
The U.S. Geological Survey9 (2004 spending: $841 million, discretionary);10
The Maritime Administration ($633 million, discretionary);
The International Trade Commission ($61 million, discretionary);
The Economic Development Administration ($417 million, discretionary);
The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program ($1,892 million, discretionary);
The Technology Opportunities Program ($12 million, discretionary);
Obsolete military bases;
The Appalachian Regional Commission ($94 million, discretionary);
Obsolete Veterans Affairs facilities;
The Rural Utilities Service (-$1,493 million,11 mandatory); and
Repeal Public Law 480′s non-emergency international food programs ($127 million, discretionary)
Discretionary spending is the portion of the annual budget that Congress actually determines.
Since 2000, discretionary outlays surged 79 percent faster than inflation, to $1,408 billion. The “stimulus” is responsible for $111 billion of 2010 discretionary spending.
Between 1990 and 2000, $80 billion annually in new domestic spending was more than fully offset by a $100 billion cut in annual defense and homeland security spending, leaving (inflation-adjusted) discretionary spending slightly lower.
Since 2000, all types of discretionary spending have grown rapidly.
Overall, since 1990, domestic discretionary spending has risen 104 percent faster than inflation and defense/security discretionary spending has risen 51 percent.
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
I wish there were more like those 66 brave conservatives that voted against the compromise that kept the government going (see links below). Now it seems that the Republicans could also stop this excessive regulations if they wanted to, but do they have the will power? I wish we had more like those 66!!!!
The Supreme Court last week ruled against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a unanimous decision. The EPA had charged a couple with violating the Clean Water Act. It claimed their property was a “wetland” and said it would fine them up to $75,000 per day — but there was no water on the property and there had been no judicial review of the charge. Where are the members of Congress whose funding enables the EPA to engage in this tyranny?
We are used to various government agencies overreaching and then seeing members of Congress go on TV and complain about what the government agencies are doing. The fact is, Congress (both parties are guilty) has failed in its oversight responsibilities and continues to fund agencies that ignore both the Constitution and the law.
Republicans whine that they cannot control spending because they only control one half of Congress. But the plain fact is that the Constitution is very specific. Any spending bill must be passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by the president. Setting aside for the moment the budget agreements that House Republicans, Senate Democrats and the president made about the overall level of spending and funding of the entitlements, there is still much House Republicans can do through the appropriations process to prevent many of the excesses of government.
Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.
For instance, there is nothing to prevent the House Republicans from refusing to fund the EPA’s desired budget until the agency puts procedures in place to guarantee the basic constitutional rights of all Americans, including independent judicial review, before any fines or criminal charges are levied. These same rules also should apply to the Securities and Exchange Commission (well-known for its incompetence and overreaching), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other agencies that have a record of abusing citizens.
Most federal agencies are required to do a cost-benefit analysis before issuing any major rule or regulation, normally defined as having an impact of $100 million. Many agencies only pay lip service to the requirement, rarely having truly independent and competent staff to do the required analysis. Another stunt used by bureaucrats to avoid doing cost-benefit studies is always to assume that the cost of the proposed regulation is under the $100 million threshold by ignoring many of the indirect costs of the regulation.
Some agencies claim they are not required to comply with the cost-benefit requirements — the IRS being one example. The IRS is now writing rules for the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The rules could drive out much of the more than $10 trillion foreign portfolio investment in the United States, which would cost millions of jobs. Has the IRS done an independent cost-benefit analysis of the regulation? No. Has the IRS looked at the impact of the regulation on Americans living abroad? No. Has the IRS done an assessment of the impact of the regulation on our relations with friendly foreign countries? No. Has the Republican House banned the IRS from spending funds on enforcing what is likely to be a very destructive regulation until a thorough and independent cost-benefit study on the regulation is done? No.
Wake up, congressional Republicans. When the foreign investments stop flowing freely next year and millions of Americans are losing jobs as a result, you are going to be blamed — and properly so — because you did nothing to stop it. You have the power to stop it and many other outrages. You don’t need Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Democrats or the president to give you permission to stop this.
House Republicans, when are you going to find the guts to stop funding National Public Radio (NPR)? Much of its taxpayer-funded but liberally biased programming attacks only you and your base, but you sit there just waiting to be hit. The folks at NPR know that you are all talk and no action so they continue to misuse public funds to promote a Democrat-only agenda.
Many Republicans continue to vote for appropriations for international outfits such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which has an anti-tax competition agenda and global minimum-tax agenda, and the International Monetary Fund, which indirectly helped fund the Greek bailout. Both organizations damage American interests. Members of Congress, please explain why U.S. taxpayers should have some of their hard-earned money spent to help the Greeks. The administration and members of Congress argue that no U.S. taxpayer money was directly used, but money is fungible. Just because it goes through several pockets does not mean that U.S. taxpayers did not contribute.
Tea Partyers and others who are concerned about the growth of abusive government need to pay attention and make it clear they will oppose those, including Republicans who call themselves fiscal conservatives, who vote to fund these abusive agencies and activities.
The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 26) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, […]
Uploaded by RepJoeWalsh on Jun 14, 2011 Our country’s debt continues to grow — it’s eating away at the American Dream. We need to make real cuts now. We need Cut, Cap, and Balance. The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 25) This post today is a part of a series […]
The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 23) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, […]
The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 22) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, […]
The Daily Hatch 