Posted on 11/26/2011 7:09:07 PM PST by rabscuttle385
These days, virtually all Republicans call themselves “conservatives” and claim to be dedicated to cutting spending, balancing budgets, reducing debts and limiting government. Most of them are liars. The failure of the super committee this week was but the latest reminder.
The super committee was supposed to figure out how to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion over 10 years. If it failed, the result was supposed to be $1.2 trillion in “automatic cuts” over the next decade, with about $600 billion of that coming from the defense budget. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said any such cuts would be “devastating” to our military. Many prominent Republicans agreed with Panetta. Mitt Romney said: “We cannot put America’s safety in jeopardy by virtue of the failure of this committee.” Michele Bachmann echoed that sentiment: “We can’t do that to our brave men and women who are on the ground fighting for us.”
When conservative Republicans say they want to cut the Department of Education, the Department of Energy or anything else, liberal Democrats shriek that Republicans will “devastate” education, energy and any other part of our government that does not remain 100% intact. Conservatives rightly recognize this as a liberal scare tactic designed to prevent anyone from downsizing a federal government that so desperately needs downsizing. What separates liberals from conservatives is that whereas liberals love big government and will tell any lie to protect it, conservatives hate big government and will cut it at every opportunity they get — or at least this has long been perceived as the divide in American politics.
I stress the word “perceived,” because when it comes to Pentagon spending, too many Republicans still behave exactly like liberal Democrats.
The truth is that we don’t need to spend as much on defense as we’re spending now. We’re spending more on defense than at any time since World War II and almost as much as every other nation combined. Senator Tom Coburn has suggested that if we are going to start cutting, the Pentagon is the most logical place to start precisely because it is the most wasteful. But even more importantly, these “devastating” automatic cuts that are supposed to happen aren’t really cuts. As Senator Rand Paul explained on CNN the day the super committee failed:
This may surprise some people, but there will be no cuts in military spending because we’re only cutting proposed increases. If we do nothing, military spending goes up 23% over 10 years. If we [make these cuts], it will still go up 16%.
Paul is describing the classic liberal narrative that if proposed spending increases are in any way diminished, this constitutes a “cut.” Rush Limbaugh reminded his listeners of the fallacy of such thinking on his program Monday:
There will be no spending cuts. There are no spending cuts in sequestration or anything else. You know how the current services baseline budget works. The current services baseline budget projects an increase of let’s say 23%, just to pick a number, okay? Well, it is, it’s the same thing every year. When’s the last time the budget went down in anything? It doesn’t happen … So if something’s supposed to go up, spending go up 23%, and it’s only gonna go up 16%, they wail and moan about a 7% cut.
Added Limbaugh:
Defense spending is going up even with sequestration … You understand the current services baseline budgeting, and even you are shocked to realize now that there is no real cut from a baseline of zero in defense spending.
Last year, Sen. Rand Paul introduced a plan that would have balanced the budget in five years and reduced the debt by $4 trillion. At the time, the budget cuts it called for far exceeded those of any other Republican proposal. He was only able to arrive at such a large number by including Pentagon reductions.
Paul’s proposal won the support of Senator Jim DeMint and Senator Mike Lee, but it failed in the Senate, 7-90. Why did the overwhelming majority of Republican senators oppose Paul’s plan? Don’t they agree with Paul, DeMint and Lee that we have to cut spending and balance the budget? What gives? Here’s how Republican Senator Lindsey Graham explained his (and his party’s) opposition: “I’m not going to vote for any budget that reduces defense spending by over 40 percent.”
Paul’s plan cut defense spending by only 6%. So where did Graham get “40%”? You guessed it: He defined decreases in the rate of spending increases as “cuts.” The same old liberal trick.
In Graham’s defense, his view on defense spending seems to be the dominant one in the Republican Party today. The problem is there’s simply no way to actually do what every Republican loves to talk about — limiting government, balancing budgets, cutting waste — without reducing defense spending. After entitlement spending, defense spending is the second largest part of our budget. You could feasibly gut the entire entitlement system and not touch Pentagon spending, but what politician is going to tell America’s seniors they must do without so Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and God-knows-where-else can have more?
As of this writing, Sen. Graham is drafting legislation to “protect our military” from the “devastating” automatic “cuts” supposedly coming down the pike due to the super committee’s failure.
If my fellow conservatives want to know why the GOP has failed to cut government spending, look at Lindsey Graham. Then take a look at all of the other Republicans who agree with him.
Sometimes large private sector businesses experience significant changes in their marketplace that result in revenue declining dramatically, with no short or even medium-term solution for driving up revenue. Things like product obsolescence.
Typically the CEO is replaced by someone experienced at dramatic downsizing turnarounds. They will reduce and eliminate costs as effectively as possible while planning for revenue stream enhancement and simultaneously getting as much profit as possible out of the portions of the revenue stream that are deemed “legacy”. This can involve getting out of some lines of business and into others. Large staff turnover can happen along with dramatic downsizing, as well as changes and downsizing in company facilities and equipment. A whole heap of small-business style common sense is needed in leadership, asking “do we need to do this process at all”, etc., not being afraid to ask tough questions and get answers one way or the other, while also having the sophistication to deal with large company issues.
That type of leadership is what’s needed in the next President of the U.S.
For the U.S. government, this all has to happen while it continues to perform it’s essential functions.
Trouble is, politicians have zero experience in this environment, and even less desire to not continue to grow the government, let alone shrink it.
That’s why I look at only Bachmann and Cain as the pair that will or even can be effective as leaders for the next decade.
Michele is on both the House Committee on Financial Services and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and she is very knowledgeable in both areas.
REALLY?
Has Hairy Reid sobered up?
Nah. He got Boehner drunk.
I’m radical enough to want to eliminate every stinking bit of it and the district it resides in.
I no longer support any part of a federal government in any way, shape or form.
Rather than cutting, how about we export?
For a change.
Walk the plank Boner.
Fifteen trillions in debt and the fact that no one seems alarmed anymore does not bode well, to say the least.
Our leaders and power brokers do not have the will to leave our financial decisions to the Constitution. Therefore the ending will not be pretty.
The budget of the Department of Education is about $80 Billion, and there are about 50 million K-12 kids in the U.S. That is about $1600 per student. The tuition for my children’s Catholic School is $5025 per year. So the Government spends about 31% of that for each child in the U.S.
Huh? By my count they control half.
Executive (President) - Dem majority (2 RINOs in cabinent, rest of Depts. run by RATs)
Judicial (Supremes) - 5-to-4 GOP majority
Legislative (House) 242-192 GOP majority
Legislative (Senate) 51-47 Dem majority
Note I corrected used red to represent the communist left-wing party, regardless of how much the mainstream media wants to reverse the colors after 2000.
Anyway...where'd you get the idea that the Dems control 3/4ths of government? Did the RATs take over the Supreme Court and make Kagan the Chief Justice when I wasn't looking?
Bzzzzt. If you block grant them, they're still federal programs, just being executed at the state level. And it's not simply a distinction without a difference vs. what you propose -- the money, which was extracted from the citizens of the same state, is only returned with strings attached which can be proven to be almost always things the citizens who contributed the money DON'T want.
Great thread. Thanks to all posters. 7-90, eh? I can't seem to find the other 89 POS senators, besides Lindsey Graham. Cut politicians and their programs. 2012.
HOORAY Rand Paul (and the other 6)!
This election is critical, but your argument is a falsehood that the current GOP congress has used to excuse their lack of follow-through on anything they campaigned on in 2010 (cutting spending and stopping Obamacare).
The Supremes have nothing directly to do with spending and neither does the President without the approval of Congress. Congress controls the purse strings and the government doesn’t spend anything that Congress doesn’t approve.
Having a strong majority in the House could have and should have been enough to stop the madness.
But if we can just get a GOP majority (again), we'll finally balance the budget. /s
” Lindsey Graham is a traitorous little weasel who needs to be expelled in 2014. “
I don’t know how he got back in last time. Musta been the Chamber of Commerce WHORES who backed him, because he was for amnesty.
That's an easy thing to say but can you remember the names of all 9?
Yes, look at Lindsey Graham and his friend McPain; that’s just what SC and AZ keep on doing.
No, none of the Dept. of Education budget is actually spent on regular classroom school expenses. That is all local and state funding; in some states, more local than state funding. The federal money is occasional gravy for “special programs” and other kinds of interference so sought by the American public.
Ok tell me what I am missing. How do they get any changes threw the Senate, and Obama Signature. I agree they should have bitten the bullet and not increased the debt ceiling. But what I’m I missing.
Congress has to pass a bill approving any and all spending. If the House doesn’t approve a bill it can’t be passed on for the President to sign it whether or not the Senate votes for it. (And all spending bills are supposed to originate in the House anyway.)
All the House has to do is only pass bills spending less money.
Thank You.
Having to much trouble with FR. Will try tomorrow.
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