Cutting spending

Of course they aren't going to cut spending. Out of the entire GOP, only two- Ron and Rand Paul- are serious about spending cuts. The rest are liberals disguised as Republicans. As the national debt evolves into a real crisis over the next few years, there will be more pressure on Republicans to cut spending, and they may or may not respond appropriately. On the other hand, the Democrats will always spend more on principle, operating on the assumption that more bigger government = more happiness no matter how out of control things get.

hahaha. WOW! you've gotta be a complete psycho to call republicans liberal! republicans these days are VERY conservative. there's hardly a moderate republican in washington, and certainly nothing close to liberal.

A single B-2 bomber costs $1.2 billion. Cut back?

No, let's kill all the arts and humanities. Who needs those when we can have fun shooting our guns at each other and taking over small countries!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-most-expensive-air-crash-in-history-786537.html

luv2run wrote:

The GOP promised to cut $100 billion yet it looks like they may only go for about $30 billion.

Here are some cuts that would be easy.

Corporate for Public Broadcasting got $422 million in 2010.

National Endowment for Humanities is asking for $204 million (a $64 million INCREASE from 2010!)

Nat'l Endowment for Arts got $155 million in 2009.

That is $781 million right there that would not be missed at all. Sure it is less than 1% of the $100 billion, but if the GOP cannot cut these programs, they do not have the balls to cut anything.

That's one suggestion: cutting educational programs at a savings of $781 million.

I would suggest ending military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, for which the DoD requested $130 billion last year.

The OP is an El Paso County loon. They've defunded their government there so much that it's become a haven for crime. Figures that this mental giant would suggest cutting back on peanuts when his own congressional district is the recipient of so much pork-barrel spending via the military. Given this slowpoke's wonderful contributions in the field of physiology, cutting back on every future grant for his research would be the most apt place to start right now.

Kudos to Rand Paul for that WSJ article. I'm a Ralph Nader supporter and I agree with just about all of that from just skimming the article. If he would sincerely fight for that he could win over a lot of people that are considered "ultra left".

There is becoming a hell of a lot of agreement between Progressives (not liberals) and real conservatives like Ron and Rand Paul. Both of these groups are adamantly against the corporatism that has hijacked the government. The big sticking point has been Medicare and Social Security. It has always been my understanding that he was fundamentally against those programs and was dedicated to getting rid of them. I on the other hand am fundamentally for them and expanding Medicare for everyone. You can do this if you do the spending cuts that Paul laid out plus have a responsible auditing system to get rid of Medicare fraud.

Medicare and Social Security are very affordable if you do away with all this artificially sustained inflation that doesn't have to be there. But various big money interests and corporations bribe the government for various spending projects that go unaudited and nobody asked for. The Fed runs out of control and artificially inflates the economy. Social Security and Medicare get linked to inflation and the rise every year. Than people lay the blame for inflation at the doorstep of the entitlement programs. Its BS.

I like NPR, to me it would be a shame to see it go.

No one ever comments on where US can cut from defense and security, because no one really knows what is spent and where in its entirety. I think thats by design.

We need to withdraw from Afghanistan. We could save a ton of money right there and save some valuable programs here. The Afghan central Govt that has no effect on most outlying areas, so even a "victory" means that you still cant control what goes on there. Let economics fix that country.

Good call. I think they need to cut everything related to the arts/humanities. It really is a waste of money and does nothing to spur children's interest in STEM.

Does this surprise you at all? Did you really expect the GOP to make serious spending cuts? Are you that naive? Based on what historical precedent would you have expected that?

I just cut the cheese.

akfe wrote:

hahaha. WOW! you've gotta be a complete psycho to call republicans liberal! republicans these days are VERY conservative. there's hardly a moderate republican in washington, and certainly nothing close to liberal.

Bah, all depends how you define the terms and what issues you consider paramount. Republicans have been spending like drunken sailors for years. Even with the tea party rhetoric it is yet to be seen that any of them are serious about actually getting spending under control.

Yeah, there are a bunch of republicans in favor of nanny state social restrictions. I wouldn't call them liberal on those issues either. This is a repudiation of traditional republican principles, although it has become engrained in republican party rhetoric and politics for at least a generation.

XY wrote:

I like NPR, to me it would be a shame to see it go.

I like NPR too, I don't see why it should get taxpayer funding, though. Maybe (once upon a time) when outlets were limited and some communities were underserved it made some sense. That time has long since passed. NPR gives a different and viable perspective. It is financially viable without government subsidies (maybe it isn't, but I would bet it is--they already get tons of corporate and foundation support).

Regardless, it this is a big idea by the tea partiers for cutting spending, that is ridiculous. Tea Party will sink their credibility with everybody. They need to be attacking the corporate welfare that goes under the name of defense spending.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

XY wrote:

I like NPR, to me it would be a shame to see it go.

I like NPR too, I don't see why it should get taxpayer funding, though. Maybe (once upon a time) when outlets were limited and some communities were underserved it made some sense. That time has long since passed. NPR gives a different and viable perspective. It is financially viable without government subsidies (maybe it isn't, but I would bet it is--they already get tons of corporate and foundation support).

Regardless, it this is a big idea by the tea partiers for cutting spending, that is ridiculous. Tea Party will sink their credibility with everybody. They need to be attacking the corporate welfare that goes under the name of defense spending.

+1 for the latter, -1 for the former.

Compared to just about every other industrialized country on Earth, US spending on arts and public broadcasting is miniscule. The funding for public TV is so tiny that public TV stations spend most of their time showing crud during pledge drives than bringing forward quality original programming. And if you cut funding for orchestras, museums, and other arts organizations, you will see a large number of organizations disappear in smaller cities and in larger cities you will see all the educational programming cut. For less than the cost of one fighter plane, support for the arts is a very sound investment.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Bah, all depends how you define the terms and what issues you consider paramount. Republicans have been spending like drunken sailors for years.

Agreed, but if the spending prior to the 2006 elections was spending like drunken sailors, then how do you characterize the spending after the Democrats took over Congress?

asdgfh wrote:

Agreed, but if the spending prior to the 2006 elections was spending like drunken sailors, then how do you characterize the spending after the Democrats took over Congress?

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

asdgfh wrote:

Agreed, but if the spending prior to the 2006 elections was spending like drunken sailors, then how do you characterize the spending after the Democrats took over Congress?

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

If you characterize it as the same, you're not looking at the numbers.

The fact that anyone would focus on tiny domestic programs while ignoring the enormous elephant in the room (defense spending) is astonishing. Defense spending is something like 20% of our total, not counting the large sums that are off-the-budget (not counted, basically so that we can spend as much money as we want and pretend that defense spending isn't high).

Wikipedia has an analysis showing that total defense-related spending is somewhere between 1 and 1.5 TRILLION dollars for 2011. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_Breakdown_for_2011)

If you want to cut 100 billion, look at defense.

But no, instead we'll cut piddling $1-5 million programs while continuing to grow defense at 9% per year.

asdgfh wrote:

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

If you characterize it as the same, you're not looking at the numbers.

Out of control spending is a symptom of both parties. Are you really going to try to convince anybody that republicans are in favor of low spending based on their record?

Precious Roy wrote:

+1 for the latter, -1 for the former.

Compared to just about every other industrialized country on Earth, US spending on arts and public broadcasting is miniscule. The funding for public TV is so tiny that public TV stations spend most of their time showing crud during pledge drives than bringing forward quality original programming. And if you cut funding for orchestras, museums, and other arts organizations, you will see a large number of organizations disappear in smaller cities and in larger cities you will see all the educational programming cut. For less than the cost of one fighter plane, support for the arts is a very sound investment.

Why is orchestra music inherently more worthy of support than rock and roll? Or rap? There are lots of struggling rock and roll and rap acts out there that could benefit from taxpayer funds. Why is Public Television (or public TV) more worthy of taxpayer funds than Fox News?

What is the return on investment that we get from support from the arts?