Facebook Doodlings – How WOULD you cut Federal spending?

by Skip

Back in November, my friend Jim started a bit of a discussion on FB with this video that explains how big government ultimately destroys a nation’s prosperity.  Idiots guide to public sector that produces no wealth

Another friend, Scott, issued a challenge:

There’s certainly no doubt that republicans and democrats alike (or conservatives and liberals alike, if you prefer) have built an enormous, expensive and unwieldy government over the past 50 or more years; or that, as a county, we’ve been …living beyond our means (or at least beyond what we’ve been willing to pay for) for at least the past 30 years. It’s time to pay up, America.

Now the question is what to cut and I look forward to that debate. Waste, fraud and abuse is the popular refrain but, even if we eliminate that (which would amaze me), the effect will be negligible. 

What substantial, popular programs will we eliminate?

<insert cricket chirps>  and then he adds, after some time:           

It seems the surest way to stifle a conversation about overgrown government is to try & bring it around to specifics.  C’mon, folks. No ideas?

Of COURSE I rise to the bait!

OK, I’m game! Ground rules – it enhances individual freedoms from the current structure, decentralizes control back to more local control, and enhances accountability.

Why shouldn’t Education be more localized…

 

…than from DC and has it fulfilled its original mandate? Nope, Delete. EPA – regulation of CO2 effectively means regulation of the economy rather than its original mandate. Nope, Delete that. Dept of Energy – has it fulfilled it’s original mandate? Nope – delete.

Add to this – Constitutionality of their enumerated powers. Delete, and return to States. In each case, less $$ spent, more localized control, and the ability for citizens to hold their politicians (AND the bureaucrats behind them) accountable.
 
Along those same lines, go over each dept and list all of the programs they carry out. Determine overlaps with programs from other depts.
 
Now, list the priorities for each Dept, then slot the programs against the priorities. drop the lowest 10%.
 
Always ask: WHY does this have to happen at the Federal level instead of at the State level (remembering that technology can fill comms gaps easily nowadays)?          
 
Here’s another ad hoc rule of thumb – if a local populace won’t fund a project that it could fund (if the priority was such) but gleefully takes other taxpayers monies to do so, take that as being a problem. Don’t fund them from the Fed level.

Do that, and a whole lot of Fed $$ does not have to be spent.

Yup, I have lots of opinions on lots of stuff (psst – sometimes, they might even work!)

*****

With all of that said, I then get asked:

I like the part about if a local populace won’t fund a project but will happily steal from other taxpayers. What kind of mindset drives that? At any rate, what gives the Fed the right to take from one state and give to another. I don’t recall reading that in the Constitution.

My response:

Mindset? Greed. In my town, I could regale you about "the sidewalk to nowhere’ that is now forcing my wee hamlet into buying equipment to maintain it that ordinarily we would not spend as a NH town…

Remember, Fed $$ ALWAYS comes with strings attached – many last forever (like the strictures on our outdoor ice rink….and the bandstand….and now sidewalks….and don’t get me started on the schools….)

 
And yes, I’m on my town’s Budget Committee….

*****           

Scott is impressed:

Wow! That’s more like it.

Of course, none of this is likely to change the country’s balance sheet by trillions. I don’t see a way around tax increases. We have to pay our bills.

Greed? It’s everywhere. It’s as essential to humans as skin. You won’t find a way around that either 

So, I wind up again – and chide Scott in the process!

That seems rather dismissive of eliminating spending, just to resign yourself to paying higher taxes. C’mon Scott, you can do better than to just give up! Buck up, man – where’s that good old college try in doing the hard work?

Well, Scott says that both (cut spending, raise taxes) have to be done. Of course, I find that unacceptable as an attitude:

I adamantly refuse to give ANY politician yet one more revenue source, given that they have so badly managed the ones they have.

I totally disagree the notion that politicians can’t do anything or that it would take a long time. That’s a defeatist attitude – "Oh nothing can be done, so why bother".

And I finally wind it down with a couple of last thoughts:

Won’t work. Latest studies out state that since about 1940, for each $1 in revenue, politicians spent $1.17, or more. Will get the reference.

Thus, it does us no good to give them more ways to tax us (or a section of us) – they are addicts… to spending and WE have to provide the intervention. We can no longer enable bad behavior.See More
 
We are learning that "there’s no something for nothing" ("managed assets badly") – the private sector has had to learn to reset and deleverage; time for the public sector to learn that globalization has now arrived for them as well and that THEY have to go on the financial diet as well.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Author

  • Skip
    Skip

    Co-founder of GraniteGrok, my concern is around Individual Liberty and Freedom and how the Government is taking that away. As an evangelical Christian and Conservative with small "L" libertarian leanings, my fight is with Progressives forcing a collectivized, secular humanistic future upon us. As a TEA Party activist, citizen journalist, and pundit!, my goal is to use the New Media to advance the radical notions of America's Founders back into our culture.

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