McConnell thinks it wise to give a would-be dictator dictatorial power over spending

http://www.cbpatriot.com/Guest_Columns.html ^ | Scott Ryan

[publius321]

Contrary to propaganda, a short term default may actually mean a DECREASING probability of a long term, full-fledged bankruptcy of the US.

If the media, academia and analysts at Moodys are warning we must RAISE the debt, chances are, the default would actually spark a rally in Teasuries and the dollar.

I threw together this video together last night. I normally prefer to write but didn't have the time. I call it "McConnell thinks it wise to give a would-be dictator dictatorial power over spending"... (continued)

[carolinacrazy]

Could this be a “give’m enough rope and they will hang themselves” ploy?

[PieterCasparzen]

IMHO...

Proposed spending cuts in 2011 spending levels, in Billions, without touching Social Security, Medicare or Defense:
_________________________________________________________________________

Education__________________ $129.8 billion
Transportation (I propose
a limit of $10 billion)_________ $84.5 billion
Basic research______________ $18.7 billion
Agriculture, forestry
, fishing and hunting _________ $32.8 billion
Fuel and energy_____________ $26.9 billion
Pollution abatement_________ $10.9 billion
Protection of biodiversity
and landscape_______________ $13.9 billion
Housing development_______ $35.5 billion
Community development_____ $25.7 billion
Recreational and
sporting services_____________ $4.1 billion
General Government
(I propose cutting the
current amount in half)_______ $16.6 billion
Welfare_____________________ $495.0 billion
Grants to States
for Medicaid________________ $276.2 billion
R & D Health
(includes NIH)______________ $36.1 billion

Total reduction to annual
spending_________________ $1,206.7 billion
_________________________________________________________________________

Defense is $964.8 billion for 2011, and certainly could be trimmed quite a bit if we were not conducting occupations of islamic nations. If we had simply dealt them a deadly blow then come home, they would have received the message to not give safe harbor to our enemies. Since we are not converting them to Christianity, but accomodating their islam membership, we do nothing to help secure ourselves from islamic theory that Western nations like America are their enemy and need to be destroyed. We could get a lot more bang for a lot less buck if our military strategies and tactics abandoned the idea of house-to-house searching and occupation, much like police, and simply focused instead on the ability to annihilate the enemy with land, sea and airpower in a conventional military operation.

Federal employee retirement current expense is $127.1 billion. All Federal employees should be put in an employee-funded 401(k) like most everyone else, with a 2% employer (Federal) match of employee contributions - like most everyone else. This would then make the Federal employee retirement obsolete and after a few decades it would no longer be an expense item for the Federal government, aside from the 2% matching.

Transportation: We spent $800 million on air marshals. If one assumes an average total cost per employee of $150,000, that would allow for a staff of 5,333 employees, which would mean that perhaps half of all flights should have an air marshal on them, which is definitely not the case. If this were left to the private sector, and they were unfettered by prohibitions against profiling, and could essentially kick @$$ and take names on flights and passengers were required to behave normally during flights, the private sector airlines could use their security efforts as a marketing point and the money they spent would be well worth it since they would be working on keeping their own security records clean and impressive. I did not automatically remove the $800 million from the Transportation, budget item, though, I just propose reducing it from $94.5 billion to $10 billion and let the executive branch figure out what it wants to do.

All of these spending cuts would require Congress to get their staffs busy writing legislation that would repeal any and all mandates that are associated with the spending.

[choctaw man]

“Could this be a “give’m enough rope and they will hang themselves” ploy?”

It won’t work; never does; we have to do the hanging.

[utahagen]

That's exactly what McConnell is doing. If what McConnell is proposing were good news for Obama, O wouldn't be storming out of meetings. Things look good, folks. Cantor, Boehner, and McConnell have Obama in a corner.

[publius321]

I like your proposal.

[publius321]

“That’s exactly what McConnell is doing. If what McConnell is proposing were good news for Obama, O wouldn’t be storming out of meetings. Things look good, folks. Cantor, Boehner, and McConnell have Obama in a corner.” - Utahagen

Wow, you’re a “lay down”. It’s pure theatrics. This is no different than the used car salesman going back and forth, “fighting” the Sales Manager on your behalf.

If I were a used car salesman, I’d love to see you walk on my lot.

[Joe Boucher]

No one makes claims congres critters are all that smart.
We already know the lot is full of criminals.

[repub4ever1]

Overall good proposal but a few counterpoints here. For example basic research is an investment in future, while military expenditures return on investment is zero. It is akin to asking a student to stop spending on college tuition and buy a new car instead.

We have military personnel in 700 countries. Why is it prudent to borrow more money from China (to be repaid in full with interest) to protect oil shipments to China?

[FrankR]

[radioone]

If the Republicans really give the Democrats the ability to hang themselves, and they do, they, and the LSM, will STILL blame the Republicans.

If McConnell doesn’t understand this, he should go home

[utahagen]

If you believe Obama’s storming out was deliberately theatrical on O’s part, I disagree. I think Obama is a petulant jerk who has never faced real opposition until he became President, and he doesn't know how to handle it. He's losing his cool because he's losing, which means Boehner, McConnell, and Cantor are winning.

[Siena Dreaming]

Cantor, Boehner, and McConnell have Obama in a corner.

I believe they do.

This proposal FORCES Obama to come up publicly with spending cut ideas which he SIMPLY WILL NOT DO in negotiations behind closed doors.

It makes him do it in 3 stages too...nice for the election season.

[utahagen]

I am psyched about the way things are going. I hope social security checks DON'T go out. The geezers will go bezerk and all Obama will do is whine about how it's the Republicans’ fault. But Obama is the President and if all he can do when checks don't go out is say, “It's not my fault!”, he'll look like a failure and a fool.

Let the games begin!

[aruanan]

I wonder if Obama has some special photos of McConnell.

McConnell says, "If we don't let him do what he wants, then he'll blame things on the Republicans." Obama and the rest of the Democrats already blame everything on the Republicans so this would be nothing different. Since it is known that current monthly revenues are sufficient to service the debt, to pay Social Security, Medicare, and a whole bunch of other stuff, if there is suddenly no money for Social Security, it will be only because Obama has decided to use the money for something else. And this is another example of the same old thing, robbing one group of people to give money to another group of people and then blaming the Republicans for whatever fallout happens either way. Just tell him no, let him illegally try to borrow more money, and then have something actionable instead of him whining, "Well, you guys said I could do it."

[PieterCasparzen]

Government basic research, if you get into the details, you will find can and should be done completely by the private sector, for the most part it is a complete joke. Mostly it is college and private sector grants - which are joke. Well, if you consider milking the government a joke.

The military is bloated, it’s painfully obvious that a lot of reductions and reallocations are possible. But doing that would require fresh minds, common sense, intelligence, mentally ambitious, etc., so I kind of leave it alone at this point, IMHO.

[repub4ever1]

I actually worked at an institution for a dozen years which did all kinds of research funded by government & industry. And out of that research so many applications useful to private industry came about that they had to set up a special department for coordination. It is true that majority of basic research generates no useful practical applications, but a healthy percentage does. Without that there will be zero new products and processes to enter industry. Private industry does very little basic research because the returns are unpredictable. One example of government funded project is design and building of an Advanced Photon Source Accelerator complex costing half a Billion which is in extensive use by all types of private industry for research. No individual private corporation can take on such project.

[PieterCasparzen]

Basic research is not going to create several million jobs, which is what we need.

At the same time, we’ve outsourced a ton of manufacturing. Those jobs would not cost citizens money, because they are industrial, not consumer.

Those jobs do not appear to be coming back any time soon.

Basic research won’t help much. But I tell you what, for what it’s worth (:)) I’ll agree to keep $.001 trillion in the budget. Of course, that means $1 billion. That should pay for one humdinger of a lab.