Posted on 01/21/2011 4:58:01 PM PST by Graneros
Moving aggressively to make good on election promises to slash the federal budget, the House GOP today unveiled an eye-popping plan to eliminate $2.5 trillion in spending over the next 10 years. Gone would be Amtrak subsidies, fat checks to the Legal Services Corporation and National Endowment for the Arts, and some $900 million to run President Obama's healthcare reform program. What's more, the "Spending Reduction Act of 2011" proposed by members of the conservative Republican Study Committee, chaired by Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, would reduce current spending for non-defense, non-homeland security and non-veterans programs to 2008 levels, eliminate federal control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, cut the federal workforce by 15 percent through attrition, and cut some $80 billion by blocking implementation of Obamacare. US News and World Report
Dominant Social Theme: It is important to defend the realm.
Free-Market Analysis: House Republicans have issued a list of cuts to be made to federal spending. We quote from the article excerpted above: The proposals "would reduce current spending for non-defense, non-homeland security and non-veterans programs to 2008 levels." Homeland Security is apparently exempt from most cuts as is the Pentagon.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybell.com ...
Since the military budget has been under an all out assault for the past few years, it really needs no further cutting as well as some restoration.
$2.5 trillion over ten years is 250 billion a year. That seems pretty timid to me.
I’m not sure I am making sense out of their math.
Clearly national defense is the most important role for the federal government. However, this has led to everyone being too afraid to cut it, lest they be perceived as weak on defense. The fact is, there are billions being wasted in the military budget, and we need to look everywhere to save money. A dollar borrowed to pay for earmarks is just as much of a burden on future generations and a dollar borrowed to fund the military.
I’m a military retiree. If they cut the military, they will cut me, not people like (do a google search) Major Jill Metzer!
There are a lot of billets that are not “tip of the spear” that can be privatized, outsourced and eliminated. Do we really need a SSgt with a shaving waiver passing out basketballs at the base gym? Do we really need a “Director of Community Programs” and a “Social Actions” office with a bloated do-nothing staff? Can we keep the flightline mechanics and maintenance shops, planes and pilots and cut office weenie positions? Just askin’!
Dang... that sounds sooooooo good!
LLS
They tried it in ‘94, but Clinton threatened a government shutdown and the Republicans blinked.
The really scary part is that $T2.5/10y isn’t enough.
Not enough as we need to cut about 2 trillion per year in spending to do any real good.
What good does it do to cut spending past 2 years when you may have the next crop of marxist pigs in congress that will be 10 times worse than the current crop?
THey must cut 20 times deeper and then cut some more. It is the only way.
What’s wrong with cutting spending in each individual year’s budget? No congress ever follows through with this ten years out budget crap. We need immediate spending cuts and tax cuts not a bunch of empty promises.
Let me give you a proposal. See what you can do with it. We have FDIC insuring personal bank accounts up to some certain level. If the bank goes under and you are a citizen the federal government makes good on the value of your account(s) in the aggregate up to that limit, and a new bank buys up the obligations.
This usually happens without a great deal of trouble for individuals. Now many corporate account holders can take a bath if they didn't watch what they were doing but the only reason this works at all is that "insured amount".
Let's say we want to cut off 20% of the accounts that are insured ~ ........ (take it from there).
Meanwhile, the demonRat strategy/agenda is the exact opposite: spend on everything BUT the military.
$2.5 Trillion is a good start — but ONLY a start. Add to this the elimination of the Dept’s of Education, Energy, and careful, thoughtful cuts to Defense spending over the next decade, and this could be increased even more dramatically....
Where does it say in the Constitution that promoting the arts is an authorized federal function?
Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238 (1936), Justice Sutherland majority opinion: “The proposition, often advanced and as often discredited, that the power of the federal government inherently extends to purposes affecting the Nation as a whole with which the states severally cannot deal or cannot adequately deal, and the related notion that Congress, entirely apart from those powers delegated by the Constitution, may enact laws to promote the general welfare, have never been accepted but always definitely rejected by this court. Mr. Justice Story, as early as 1816, laid down the cardinal rule, which has ever since been followed-that the general government ‘can claim no powers which are not granted to it by the constitution, and the powers actually granted, must be such as are expressly given, or given by necessary implication.’ Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 326. In the Framers Convention, the proposal to confer a general power akin to that just discussed was included in Mr. Randolph’s resolutions, the sixth of which, among other things, declared that the National Legislature ought to enjoy the legislative rights vested in Congress by the Confederation, and ‘moreover to legislate in all cases to which the separate States are incompetent, or in which the harmony of the United States may be interrupted by the exercise of individual Legislation.’ The convention, however, declined to confer upon Congress power in such general terms; instead of which it carefully limited the powers which it thought wise to intrust to Congress by specifying them, thereby denying all others not granted expressly or by necessary implication. It made no grant of authority to Congress to legislate substantively for the general welfare, United States v. Butler, supra, 297 U.S. 1, at page 64, 56 S.Ct. 312, 102 A.L.R. 914; and no such authority exists, save as the general welfare may be promoted by the exercise of the powers which are granted. Compare Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 22, 25 S.Ct. 358, 3 Ann.Cas. 765.”
Republicans to Cut Everything but Military and Ethanol Subsidies
fixed it.
Yes absolutely it is only a start. But you can see just from the responses here just how hard it will be just to get this small start. Again just read the response by those whose sacred cow has been (as they perceive) attacked and just think what the response will be from the liberal side. You’ll be able to hear the howling and belly aching from inside a tornado.
Imagine what all those who think 20% is too much of a sacrifice will think when inflation has whittled the dollar down to the point where it is worthless. People, still, this late in the game, don’t realize just how serious the threat is they are facing. When our monthly income won’t buy a loaf of bread it will be too late to do anything about it. So while we still can, everyone including the Military is going to have to sacrifice.
Everything needs to be cut across the board. Nothing should be spared.
We are broke
www.usdebtclock.org
Everything needs to be cut across the board. Nothing should be spared.
We are broke
www.usdebtclock.org
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