Posted 2/12/2011 01:30:00 PM by Douglas

As a nation, we're broke. We get it. We've been spending like a drunken sailor on leave, but now we gotta cool it. Enter a fiscally responsible republican with a non-Swiftian modest proposal. I was very disappointed to find out he wasn't proposing eating children.

My proposal would first roll back almost all federal spending to 2008 levels, then initiate reductions at various levels nearly across the board. Cuts to the Departments of Agriculture and Transportation would create over $42 billion in savings each, while cuts to the Departments of Energy and Housing and Urban Development would save about $50 billion each. Removing education from the federal government's jurisdiction would create almost $80 billion in savings alone. Add to that my proposed reductions in international aid, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and other federal agencies, and we arrive at over $500 billion.

OK, $500 billion is nothing to laugh at, and a hellova good start. But read on to find out if he's really serious:

My proposal, not surprisingly, has been greeted skeptically in Washington, where serious spending cuts are a rarity. But it is a modest proposal when measured against the size of our mounting debt. It would keep 85% of our government funding in place and not touch Social Security or Medicare.

Well WHY? The budget cutters can sing and dance about how broke we are and how we have to reduce spending, yet these two sacred cows of government entitlement are completely off limits? Check out the 2010 budget, specifically the top seven government outlays. With the exception of the Department of Defense and interest on the loan, the five biggest expenditures are
social services. Social Security, Unemployment, Medicare, Medicaid and Health and Human Services make up 57% of the budget. A cut in those programs alone of just over 20% would get $500 billion, too.

If we're serious about cutting spending, we need to get serious about really cutting spending and not just programs in other congressmen's districts.