Despite bipartisan promises to cut spending after the 2010 elections, Washington politicians are still voting to make the government even bigger and more expensive than ever.
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Even though the federal government is nearly $15 trillion in debt, it’s spending at record-high levels. Federal spending has gone up 5 percent in the first nine months of this year alone.
Just last week, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate passed three new spending bills to increase 2012 funding above 2011 funding levels. The bills will increase spending for the Department of Agriculture by $6.4 billion; for the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development by more than $2 billion; and for the Commerce, Justice, and State departments by more than $694 million.
This isn’t austerity. It’s gluttony.
All the talk of cutting spending after the 2010 elections has been just that: talk. The supposedly game-changing events of the past eleven months haven’t changed much at all.
In the spring fight to avert a government shutdown, Republicans promised $100 billion in real cuts but then compromised for $38.5 billion in future savings. In reality, the Congressional Budget Office found the deal still resulted in an increase of more than $170 billion in federal spending from 2010 to 2011. The “largest spending cut in history” ended up being a spending increase.
Americans were then told the real spending cuts would come during the summer fight over the decision to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. Conservatives pushed the Cut, Cap, and Balance plan to balance the budget within ten years in exchange for increasing the legal borrowing limit. Instead of doing that, however, Democratic and Republican leadership made a compromise deal to allow President Obama to increase our national debt to nearly $17 trillion, conditioned only on the creation of a supercommittee that would produce debt-reduction recommendations by the end of the year.
But the committee isn’t really trying to cut spending. It seeks only to spend the country into bankruptcy a little slower. Rather than letting the country rack up $23.4 trillion of debt by 2021, the supercommittee hopes to keep it to $21.3 trillion. It’s the difference between speeding off a cliff at 91 miles per hour versus 100 miles per hour.
One would think that, in the sub-AAA-rated America that’s moving down a path dangerously similar to the one Greece is on, members of this supercommittee would be eagerly rooting out waste throughout our behemoth government. Not so. Reports indicate that the committee, which works in secret, has spent months debating how high they should raise taxes to lower the deficit.
While everyone is waiting for the supercommittee to unveil its grand plan, Congress continues to spend with abandon. Even modest proposals to make small cuts are rejected with overwhelming, bipartisan force.
Real cuts have nothing to do with returning to 2008 spending levels. The government was already bloated then. In fact, since FDR, the federal government has grown from about 5 percent of GDP to 25 percent today.
State and local spending have also tripled in that time.
So the balanced budge amendment is not enough. We need to cap federal spending and taxation as a much lower percentage of GDP.
My view is simple. America was a superpower before government began spiraling out of control. We can become an even greater super power by cutting government down to 10 percent of GDP, at most.
I don't need a department of education, energy, housing and urban development, transportation, commerce, etc. Just get rid of them.
The federal government should let states decide what they want to do. States should defer to counties. Counties to cities. Cities to neighborhoods. That way, we can run lots of experiments. Neighborhoods with good government policies will grow in value. Those that don't won't.
I wish we would have been given the chance to "finish the job" started in 2010 by having been given the chance to vote for the article's author for president.
This is an egregious exemplar of fiscal irresponsibility to the American people no matter what may be their quixotic political allegiance. Spending must be cut, and cut now. Nothing else will suffice. The time is now. Time for foolishness has evaporated as have all empty words and hollow promises.
It is infuriating, to be sure, to watch the car careen toward the precipice. However: we the beloved people give Congress the lowest approval ratings in history, but then we send back our representative. We rail against “big” government spending, but poll after poll indicates that we won’t accept even modest reductions in any of the entitlement programs. So long as we are committed to ‘cuts’ for everyone except us, the car will continue to gain speed. Our political leaders (sic) are giving us pretty much what we want.
Why is anyone surprised by this?! This is typical Washington politics. Congressmen and senators have one top priority...keeping thier jobs. Term limits, no more baseline budgeting, dynamic scoring for the CBO, and a balanced budget amendment would be a great start to fixing DC.
Well, a big step in the right direction would be to eliminate agencies that the Federal Government has no business doing anyway. Let's start with the Department of Education, the EPA, and the Energy Department.
GOP leadership is pathetic, GOP candidates are silent on this, the Senate hasn't passed a budget in over 900 days, the media is silent, nobody is talking about privatizing anything nor doing away with baseline budgeting, how wrong is that, and in the end the tax increases will be upfront and the "spending cuts" (really reduced rates in spending increases) will take place on the back end so the taxpayer loses once again.
The GOP fails to use every day to educate the public on even basic economic issues and the role of government. It's well past time to move NPR, PBS and NEA off the backs of the taxpayer, I'm sure the Hollywood crowd could fund them and / or hold a fund raiser for them. I know in the grand scheme of the deficit, these programs are small but come on, this is low hanging fruit. If they cannot take on these small items, how in the world can they take on entitlements?
Base line budgeting must be stopped, and across the board cuts made to all departments. Many programs should be ended entirely, agencies combined (and downsized), Washington DC is now the richest community in the US & they produce nothing - just take from the rest of us!
Audit the FED, institute a balanced budget amendment - cut this leviathan back to size, we can't afford it. IT"S THE SPENDING STUPID.
One thing that would help a lot is to get rid of the current Republican "leadership". They sold us down the river yet again with this silly debt deal. Boehner/McConnell and their miniuns must go.
The Constitution requires Congress to pass a budget and they haven't for a couple of years. So how is an amendment requiring a balanced budget going to help? If they can ignore one part of the Constitution with impunity, they can ignore all of it.
Agreed. The only answer I see is the repeal of the 16th amendment. They won't be able to spend if they have no money or way to back up the borrowing.
Further, our field of candidates is woefully inadequate when it comes to spending. Paul is the only one proposing any real spending cuts. Cain, Gingrich, etc all think that it is just a management problem. As DeMint proves a change in management is not the answer; eliminating what is managed is.
We need to work hard in the primaries to get more DeMints in and get the McCain types out...
Good points. Balanced budget rules also fail at other levels. A state with such a rule may easily pass deficits over revenues into future budgets -- leaving profligate government ways in place and without accomplishing any of the spending restraint that has been so needed
I am beginning to think this saga of borrowing and loaning is just a game in which the loaners know they will never be paid back and the borrowers take until there is no more.
Like two stars orbiting one another in a final dance, we feed off of them and they feed off of us. When the music stops, we will all pay a price; until that day is here "Party On".
Does anyone have the bill tracking information for the votes Sen. DeMint mentions? I'm curious to see who voted for increased spending. I'm particularly interested in seeing how Sen. McConnell voted.
Our elected officials will not shed a tear when the average American goes down with the ship. They of course will have taken care of themselves, don't they always?
The professional politicians in Washington will not shed a tear when the average American goes down with the ship. They of course will take care of themselves, don't they always?
Defeating Obama in 2012 is not enough. Nor is defeating sitting Democrat congressmen. Conservatives must run against and defeat liberal congressional Republicans in the primaries as well, particularly the ones in leadership.
We don't need more Republicans in Congress, we need more conservatives.
