The morning after I had taken my first casual whack at eliminating the deficit–The New York Times has a nifty interactive form you can use (here) to check off items it chose from the debt commission report to see if and how you might solve the problem–I wake up to a Google Alert that’s practically calling my name.
The link leads to content from Heather Mac Donald (great last name) via the The Monday Morning Clacker--which is where we find out that "this is our last chance to meet Heather’s challenge."
That’s a bit dramatic, and hardly accurate. If it wasn’t for Google Alerts, the mention of Guinta, and the fact that Heather and I share a last name I never would have even known about it, or the imagined arbitrary deadline. Be that as it may, I accept.
Heather (She Blogs at Secular Right) is basically wondering if this firebrand coalition is prepared to do what it says, while revealing some interesting prejudices in the process. Right out of the gate she infers that the Tea Party darling of earmark reform is fantastical–as in having no measurable effect on the larger Tea Party goal of cutting spending. That’s true if we are only counting beans and maybe that’s as far as she means it to go. I can only speak for myself, but earmark reform to me is about power and pandering, not budget cutting. It is a projection of arrogance with ill side effects that has no place in a Republican democracy. And while I agree that there is an appropriations process where money from the feds will still need to go to the states for as long as we must endure their taking more than the constitution warrants I’d rather limit it to block payments and let the local legislatures decide where to spend it.
So ending congressional earmarks is not simply cutting out a middle man with too much influence who is too far away and too easily corrupted, it is also about restoring local control and local priorities to spending to their rightful place in a republican democracy. That, and it also stops the practice of back scratching inside-baseball earmarks for states they do not even represent.
Heather proceeds from their on firmer ground, to consider briefly what the Tea Party will or should embrace and gives her thoughts on a few of the commissions findings in that regard. "Clacker" turns it into a challenge with no exposition at all. Had I not already played on the NYT interactive form–intending to blog it anyway, we’d be having this conversation without either of them.
So how or what did I do, given the Times limitations? Lets take a look.
Captured from the NYT site.
Using the NYT formula I eliminated all of the long term debt and then some, but left $72 Billion in annual budget deficits on the table for later. I was not in love with the choices but $72 Billion is not that much in a 14 trillion dollar economy. There are hundreds of billions more to be had outside this budget commission framework (or the NYT sampling) in real entitlement reform–which the debt commission fails to address–as well as in repealing Obamacare which is nowhere to be found in the report.
They also leave the Department of Education untouched even though it’s budget expanded by grotesque amounts under Obama. Despite that and other ideas being out of reach here, I still managed to accrue 94% of my savings from cuts, with 6% coming from tax reform–in less time than it takes to get a pizza delivered.
Heather would be pleased with my results, even though I ignored her suggested/implied gas tax hike–that tax is regressive, too high already, and the money badly used; I’d opt for more local control of that money as well–see the earmark comments above for clarification on why–and would consider lowering the tax as soon as the opportunity presented itself. As for my options, I chose to simplify the tax code, cut overseas military staffing and spending, trimmed the nuclear arsenal to 1000 nukes(preferably modernized), raised retirement/Medicare age to 70 (I’d do it faster than the commission suggests), and took almost every cut available except Air and Navy force strengths–projecting power is still necessary and nothing projects like modern fleets with modern aircraft.
The only tax reforms I was offered that made sense were to change the mortgage interest deduction by removing it on high earners. The deduction exits to encourage home buying, but the uber wealthy buy homes anyway without much concern for the deduction. I also opted for death tax reform but given more flexibility I might have left these out and cut the bureaucracy deeper and more quickly. Major health care reform (away from Obamacare and toward open market approaches) and a fundamental overhaul of all tax policy and the entire IRS would likely produce far more in savings but I was not given these choices to make. (Nor the hundred of others we could suggest).
Overall I’d call the challenge met and one upped, though I’m not here to start a pissing match. Heather is right to challenge the collective consciousness of the tea party, though we may disagree on what exactly that is. But even if we could agree, lets also be honest about the political environment.
All Guinta, the freshman class, and the tea party can really do for now is try to pass cuts and reforms. Without a willing chief executive (Or US Senate even) it is simply practice for the real thing, if and when a more willing president replaces Obama in 2012.
So the test is not do they do it, or can they do it, but do they keep trying, while communicating the need for patience, persistence, and institutional reforms rather than just gimmicks in the face of an expected string of presidential vetoes.
I do invite you to check out the NYT deficit toy and have some fun with it. See what you can come up with given the limitations and then let us know how you did.
