Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Groundhog Day?

I really need to focus here.  So much going on and so little time to comment.....

I can balance the budget

By John Stossel
February 01, 2011

The Congressional Budget Office says the current year's budget deficit will be a record $1.5 trillion. It also says that over the next decade we're on track for annual deficits of "only" $768 billion. I suspect the CBO has hired Rosy Scenario to do the bookkeeping, but let's take that number at face value.

I'm now going to balance the budget, with the help of some recent guests on my TV show.

I'll begin with things I'm most eager to cut. Let's privatize air traffic control. Canada did it, and it works better. Then privatize Amtrak. Get rid of all subsidies for rail. That'll save $12 billion.

End subsidies for public broadcasting, like NPR. Cancel the Small Business Administration. Repeal the Davis-Bacon rules under which the government pays union-set wages to workers on federal construction projects. Cut foreign aid by half (although we should probably get rid of all of it). So far, that's $20 billion.
---------------------------------
Paul replies:
Stop right here!  Up to this point, we were talking specifics.  Now he gets nebulous and vague.  Cut "foreign aid?"  So, does that mean we stop sending food and rescue workers to disaster areas?  Does it mean we stop sending money and weapons to Israel?  Let's talk specifics, Mr. Stossel, or your arguments are no better than Mr. Obama's. 

For the record, I am actually in favor of cutting our military aid to Israel as well as tying humanitarian aid to real reforms in the nations we assist.  You have a flood and want American food and supplies?  Then you help us help you by getting rid of corruption and, in the case of places like Pakistan and Iran, root out the terrorists and their funding.  We would not need to spend as much in aid to Israel if the nations around it were not bent on its destruction....
-----------------------------------
The article continues:
Oops. That doesn't dent the deficit. We have to do much more.

So eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. We'd save $94 billion. Federal involvement doesn't improve education. It gets in the way.
---------------------------------
Paul replies:
Yet again, this has been a Conservative/Libertarian talking-point since the 1980 election in which REAGAN promised to get rid of the Department of Education.  As with so many issues, its a Stalking Horse, a way to gin up conservative votes but never delivering...not that I am opposed to ending it.  This is an example of Stossel putting up a "talking point" and, sorry, but unless he says HOW he is going to do it in the post-NCLB era, its meaningless.
----------------------------------
The article continues:

Agriculture subsidies cost us $30 billion a year. Let's get rid of them. They distort the economy.
--------------------------------------
Paul replies:
Never going to happen, no matter if we had Republican majorities in both chambers and a Republican president.  Why do I say that?  We HAD that from 2002-2006 and NOTHING.  Add to that how much money ADM and the major farming lobbyists pump into Congressional campaigns.  Why do you think Obama reneged on his promise to end the ethanol subsidy (one of the promises I HOPED he would keep)?  ADM pretty much bought off enough people to make sure it stayed in place.  Higher food costs?  They love it!
----------------------------------------
The article continues:
We should also eliminate Housing and Urban Development. That's $53 billion more.
------------------------------------
Paul replies:
....and the Congress that does this is branded racists.  Again, I am not opposed in any way to ending HUD, but considering how much HUD money goes into "inner cities" and "enterprise zones," its a Democratic candidate's dream-come-true because it is a ready-made argument against the Republicans.
-------------------------------------
The article continues:

The Republicans in Congress have the budgetary "nuclear" option at their disposal! Let them know you expect them to use it by sending a message to all 242 GOP House members via the "No More Red Ink" campaign

Who needs the Energy Department and its $20 billion sinkhole? The free market should determine energy investments.
---------------------------------------
Paul replies:
I disagree with this, not because I want the Energy Department to continue existing and sucking up tax dollars.  Turn the Department of Energy into a private, for-profit entity unto itself....call it something like Energy for Tomorrow, Inc.  Trade it publicly and let people invest money in it.  But we absolutely need a central "place" where energy research and investment can take place without risking another Enron.  No tax dollars but keep the employees and put them to work on all of the things we NEED:  efficient sustainable domestic power generation.  I am talking about real research into some of the "alternative energy" options that need work...things like orbital fusion reactors, geothermal power generation at a local level (unfeasible on large scale, more attainable on small scales), off-shore wind/wave generation (VA leads the nation on this research and it could happen in the next decade), improved fission reactors and more of them...the list goes on.  Someday, we could harness the sun's power, but we need real solutions right now.
-----------------------------------------
The article continues:

And let's end the war on drugs. In effect, it's a $47 billion subsidy for thugs in the black market.
--------------------------------------
Paul replies:
AB-SO-FREAKING-LUTELY!  I could not agree more!  That is one of the few Libertarian "talking points" on which I agree completely.
-------------------------------------
The article continues:

I've already cut more than six times more than President Obama proposed in his State of the Union address. His freeze of non-defense discretionary spending would save only $40 billion.

But my cuts still total only $246 billion. If we're going to get rid of the rest of the CBO's projected deficit, we must attack the "untouchable" parts of the budget, starting with Social Security. Raising the retirement age and indexing benefits to inflation would save $93 billion. I'd save more by privatizing Social Security, but our progressive friends won't like that, so for now I'll ignore privatization.

The biggest budget busters are Medicare and Medicaid, and, get this, the 400 subsidy programs run by HHS. Assuming I take just two-thirds of the Cato Institute's suggested cuts, that saves $281 billion. (See Cato's cuts.)
--------------------------------------------
Paul replies:
*screaming*  THIRD RAIL!  THIRD RAIL!

I love Mr. Stossel for saying it.  I love my own party for saying this over and over.  But we would all do well to remember the "cuts" to school lunches by the 1994 Congress and how Clinton and the Democrats turned that into "starving children."  Note:  they did not cut, only slow growth, and it STILL helped Clinton get re-elected as well as cut into the GOP Senate majority.

I'll be honest though:  I am a partisan on the issue of Medicare/Medicaid/FAMIS/S-CHIP, but my views are simply that any doctor, pharmacy or hospital should be allowed to "opt-out" of these programs.  The reimbursements are hellishly low, meaning doctors have to see more patients than is safe in order to make any money, meaning pharmacies must take LOSSES on prescriptions, driving up costs to uninsured patients in order to make margins, and hospitals have to write off obscene amounts of money under those federal agreements.  When there are fewer providers willing to take those plans AND we have free-market options for insurance (do NOT get me started on the people who get Medicaid in my area who COULD get private insurance but choose to take the public dole), we would effectively cut costs because fewer people would be using the programs....and eventually no one.....
----------------------------------------------
The article continues:

How about the Defense Department's $721 billion? Much of that money could be saved if the administration just shrank the military's mission to its most important role: protecting us and our borders from those who wish us harm. Today, we have more than 50,000 soldiers in Germany, 30,000 in Japan and 9,000 in Britain. Those countries should pay for their own defense. Cato's military cuts add up to $150 billion.
-------------------------------------------
Paul replies:
This actually partners with a Libertarian Party "talking point" that always get people pissed off.  When the Marines or the Army go into a country to save people, stop massacres, or just bring food.....THOSE NATIONS SHOULD BE PAYING FOR IT!  When the Marines build schools and reopen markets in Marja (my brother was there, I have seen the pictures), the Afghans should be paying for the help.  You want Mother Green and her Killing Machine to rescue the Haitian people from squalor?  Goods or monetary compensation should be required.  The United States military is NOT a charity.  You want charity?  Contact the Red Cross/Red Crescent/United Way/whatever.....
----------------------------------------
The article continues:

I've now cut enough to put us $2 billion in surplus!

Can we go further? My TV show's guests thought so.

"Repeal Obamacare," syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock said.

Reason magazine editor Matt Welch wants to cut the Department of Homeland Security, "something that we did without 10 years ago."

But don't we need Homeland Security to keep us safe?

"We already have law enforcement in this country that pays attention to these things. This is a heavily bureaucratized organization."
---------------------------------------------
Paul replies:
Here again, we have a talking point from the Libertarian Party, but I note Mr. Stossel does not give the follow-up statement that usually accompanies this:  We repeal the Patriot Act.  A significant portion of the DHS monies are spent on enforcing this violation of American civil liberties which have never caught any terrorists.  As anyone who follows such things will tell, we have either been very lucky (Christmas Day Detroit, Times Square, etc) or else the plots have been uncovered by existing law enforcement (FBI, ICE and state police foiled Y2k-LAX).  DHS is effectively useless.
-----------------------------------------------
The article continues:

"Cut the Commerce Department," Mary O'Grady of the Wall Street Journal said. "If you take out the census work that it does, you would save $8 billion. And the rest of what it does is really just collect money for the president from business."
------------------------------------
Paul replies:
Getting awfully close to one of my soap-box issues.  Collecting money from businesses for government?  Um...we call that bribes down in the South.....
------------------------------------
The article continues:

As the bureaucrats complain about proposals to make tiny cuts, it's good to remember that disciplined government could make cuts that get us to a surplus in one year. But even a timid Congress could make swift progress if it wanted to. If it just froze spending at today's levels, it would almost balance the budget by 2017. If spending were limited to 1 percent growth each year, the budget would balanced in 2019. And if the crowd in Washington would limit spending growth to about 2 percent a year, the red ink would almost disappear in 10 years.

As you see, the budget can be cut. Only politics stand in the way.

Read more: I can balance the budget http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=258545#ixzz1CpMzXLyd


__,_._,___

-------------------------------------
Paul replies:
He omits that the debt would still be there....and freezing spending would still mean it takes over a century to pay down the debt.

My proposal?  Cut spending by $500 billion and put that money into debt service.  THEN freeze spending and keep everything else where it is.  We service the debt with the savings until it is gone and THEN we make the cuts permanent and pass a balanced budget amendment.  We do it backwards if we have to.  Every state propose a federal amendment requiring a balanced budget....it passes 2/3 of the states and then we the people tell Washington.....DO IT!

No comments:

Post a Comment