Or don’t.
I am highly gratified by the losses of: Alan Grayson, Jim Oberstar, Phil Hare, Barron Hill, Bob “Who are you?” Etheridge, Russ Feingold, Charlie Crist, all the Blue Dogs who voted for the health-care disaster, and others, off the top of my head.
I’m disappointed that we haven’t ended the long national nightmares of Barney Frank, Harry Reid (though he’ll actually probably continue to do damage to the Democrats, particularly if he remains the Minority Leader), Loretta Sanchez, Barbara Boxer, and no doubt others.
I’m very happy to see Senators Rubio, Ron Johnson, and Pat Toomey, among others.
But the main thing is that at least we will be able to stop digging, and spend the next couple years Preparing to finish the job, in the Senate and the White House.
But the main thing is that at least we will be able to stop digging, and spend the next couple years Preparing to finish the job, in the Senate and the White House.
Indeed. The best thing we can hope for is gridlock as long as Barry’s in the Whitehouse. Nothing will of any real merit can get past his veto.
I just hope the Tea Party voters can keep this level of enthusiam and commitment to principals for the years to come. This is not a short battle and if the Left has any positive qualities, it has endurance.
Come January, Queen Nancy will have to go back to riding on commercial airliners instead of having government jets fly her and her entourage all over the place. Oh, the humanity! I can only hope that the next Speaker turns down that expensive priviledge.
The next speaker lives less than five hundred miles from DC.
The next speaker lives less than five hundred miles from DC.
That would cut the cost compared to flying all the way to California but the point remains – there is no serious justification for insisting that the Speaker of the House must travel on military aircraft. The security justification is weak. The Air Force maintains a lot of expensive aircraft (Gulfstreams and larger) at Andrews AFB for VIP transportation. This costs a lot of money each year that we can ill afford. If they have to ride in a government aircraft, put them in the back of a C-130 or something equally uncomfortable. If the plane isn’t landing where they want to go, let them jump like I used to do.
I agree with Larry. Boehner can set a good example off the bat by giving up the security accoutrements. If there is an active attack occuring, than yes, get a military jet and protect the US government leadership. Otherwise, we need a government that follows the same laws they require of the people if we are to remain a republic. Of course, I suspect neither Nancy or Boehner (if he gave up the military transport) would really fly commercial that often…
If the government wants to show they’re serious about reducing spending (fat chance), then cutting some of their luxuries would be a good place to start. Take a look at the 89th Airlift Wing at Andrews that’s responsible for VIP transportation. The active duty strength is over 1100 personnel and that’s not counting the civil service civilians and any reservists who may also participate. Click on the links to see the aircraft they operate ranging from Gulfstream IIIs at the low end through 737s and four 757s to two 747s at the the high end (Air Force 1). The acquisition cost alone of those aircraft has to be over a billion dollars and it costs a fortune to maintain and operate those planes each year. Keep the presidential transport but cut the frills for the so-called VIPs. Obama’s little trip to India is going to cost us $200 million a day. I can’t help but think that’s a bit excessive.
there is no serious justification for insisting that the Speaker of the House must travel on military aircraft
I agree, but that was the Secret Service’s idea, originated when Hastert was Speaker, and there’s no particular reason to expect it to change now that we’re back to having a GOP Speaker from the Midwest.
This costs a lot of money each year
Social Security and Medicare cost a lot of money. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost a lot of money. Flying the Speaker home does not cost a lot of money.
So, if it doesn’t save trillions it isn’t worth doing? Bullshit. You save billions by chipping away at the millions. There’s an old saying in backpacking that “if you worry about the ounces, the pounds take care of themselves.” Likewise, if we start cutting at the millions and billions level then the trillions take care of themselves. You have to start somewhere. Obama’s trip to India is going to cost $200 million a day and require 40 aircraft. Scale it back. The taxpayers spent millions on flying Queen Nancy and her entourage. Scale it back. Just because the Secret Service said something several years ago (in the paranoia following 9-11), it doesn’t mean the reason is valid to continue today.
Via InstaPundit, the Cato Institute has assembled some suggestions for cutting government spending from different sources. Some involve defense cuts while others are to entitlement programs and government agencies. The estimated savings are as high as $400 billion a year. Take the best of the suggestions and act on them. Or, if that’s too hard, implement a true cross the board spending cut of at least 5%.
“Or, if that’s too hard, implement a true cross the board spending cut of at least 5%.”
I’d add: “You can have a one-time bonus equal to this year’s lost pay if you manage to fire a non-field-agent.”
This gets everyone scrambling to save their own job and sack someone else instead of banding together quite so much.
So, if it doesn’t save trillions it isn’t worth doing?
Boehner’s time and attention are finite resources. An hour that he spends on economizing his travel arrangements is an hour that he doesn’t spend on Medicare (assuming he has any interest in saving money on Medicare). If you care about the results, you start with the big stuff, not the crumbs.
There’s no realistic way Boehner can do anything about Medicare or Social Security. Even if the Republicans had won control of the Senate, Obama would just veto anything he didn’t like. Besides, it’s political suicide – any attempt to fix the Social Security Ponzi scheme or Medicare would just give ammo for the Democrats to demogague with in 2012 unless Obama puts forward his proposals for reform. Fat chance of that.
The federal budget is about $3 trillion. A 5% cross the board cut would save $450 billion in one year. There are some departments that contribute virtually nothing (e.g. what do we get for the approximately $60 billion allocated to the Department of Education each year) and could be eliminated, but that’s unrealistic. Start with a real 5% cut. Look out for the billions and the trillions take care of themselves.
Boehner’s time and attention are finite resources. An hour that he spends on economizing his travel arrangements is an hour that he doesn’t spend on Medicare
The solution is less government. If government had a lesser role in the everyday lives of every American, then Boehner would have plenty of time to work the few and very important tasks laid out by the US Constitution.
“The federal budget is about $3 trillion. A 5% cross the board cut would save $450 billion in one year.”
Actually a 5% cut would be 150 billion, it would take a 15% cut to get 450 billion.
I believe the budget is 3.4 trillion not counting off the books spending and black projects.
Boehner got quite emotional about becoming second in line to the presidency. Just think, Obama had both Biden and Pelosi as life insurance!
Boehner would [then] have plenty of time
Correctamundo!
If you care about the results, you start with the big stuff, not the crumbs.
I would agree except you have to start with what you can do rather than what you might like to do. The whole budget is crumbs… Unless it’s to bailout the one’s that should lose their jobs or buying bonds with what? Bonds?
Sanity means we cut spending enough to actually see what’s going on. Not just reduce but eliminate budget items. It’s a target rich environment.
Rand, you said “if he remains Minority Leader”. Did I miss something, or do you mean “Majority Leader” ? I thought the Donks held the Senate?
I thought the Donks held the Senate?
Wishful thinking on my part…
Gridlock works for me. The only time we’ve actually been able to reel deficits back in is when Congress had it’s hands tied to de facto continuing resolutions for several years. I don’t trust Republicans much more than Democrats on this.
The problem this time is that we’re so far gone. You can reel in a 4 or 5% deficit with 3 or 4 good growth years. You need more like 6 or 7 with the current situation. I don’t see congress staying gridlocked long enough for that to happen. We may already be over the tipping point, really.
Now the game the liberals are going to play is, “what specific cut?” Knowing that whatever specific thing becomes the subject of ridicule. I think those wanting to make cuts go all in, in this game. Choose one thing at a time, have total coordination and don’t let them say, “what else?” until that one thing is eliminated from the budget. Do that all down the line.
Also, don’t announce the target until they have the votes. Playing fair in this is a fools game. They need to out dirty the libs.
I keep waiting for Pelosi to start singing “My Way.” Say, that should be SNL’s opening skit.
Obama’s trip to India is going to cost $200 million a day
Or not. Don’t believe everything you read.
A 5% cross the board cut would save $450 billion in one year
Arithmetic is important; as Vladislaw points out, that’s a 15% cut, not a 5% cut.
And to do it that way you have to cut everything. But the GOP has promised to not cut Social Security, Medicare, or defense — i.e. most of the government. And of course you can’t cut interest payments on the debt. To save $450B from what’s left means an across-the-board cut of about 50%. So say goodbye to half of border security, the national parks and forest service, NIH, NSF, NASA, the FDA, food inspections, highways, airports, air traffic control, etc.
what do we get for the approximately $60 billion allocated to the Department of Education each year
Poor kids get to go to college, for one thing.
How about this, Jim. Have Obama propose what can be cut in the budget. He is after all the president and we were told how brilliant he is. Make him show some actual leadership for a change. As it is, Republicans are going to be wary of falling into the old Democrat trap. If they propose anything to address the unsustainable mess of Social Security and Medicare, you can count on the Democrats running their same tired “scaring granny” commercials in the next election. So, Obama is the president. What does he propose?
As for the cost of Obama’s little trip, do factor in the cost of the 34 warships sent to keep him safe as well as the 40 aircraft and the costs of apparently several hundred people in his entourage. It reminds me of an old poster from WWII.
So FactCheck provides no facts other to provide the source of $200M/day story and then suggest an opinion that the source shouldn’t be trusted. Perhaps FactCheck should change their name. Hey Jim, why not a link to MediaMatters? Maybe CBS News, so we can get a fake but accurate pronouncement.
So say goodbye to half of border security, the national parks and forest service, NIH, NSF, NASA, the FDA, food inspections, highways, airports, air traffic control, etc.
Other than border security (which is Constitutionally mandated), the rest of that list looks pretty good. If any of it is truly necessary it can be handled by the states (as per the 10th amendment) and the free market. Good idea, Jim!
Pelosi’s “astroturf” remark was an example of a syndrome I mentioned in the “You might be a Marixst if . . .” thread: the idea that if there is any opposition to statism, it must be part of a conspiracy engineered by secret string-pullers (in blatantly Marxist terms, the Ruling Class and their lackeys). who havbe duped enough suckers with “false consciousness” to be their pawns.
larry j Says:
“How about this, Jim. Have Obama propose what can be cut in the budget. He is after all the president and we were told how brilliant he is. Make him show some actual leadership for a change.”
Larry, you have to understand the two parts of the budget, Discretionary and non dis. spending.
Non Discrestionary spending is that which has been previously mandated to be spent and is codified into law. In order to cut that spending a new law has to be passed first. That represents the buik of the federal budget.
Discretionary spending is what gets horse traded every year. Do we spend X amount this year for mass transportation or Y? This is done first under an authorization bill. Which says how much can be spent, then funding has to be appropriated which often times is less than what is authorized.
When Bush took office there was a surplus and he proposed a 10 year 3 trillion dollar tax cut which would sunset after ten years and taxes would then return to the previous level. Unfortunately President Bush didnt cut anything on the spending side. So for ten years as total federal tax revenues decreased relative to GDP spending increased.
Today the USA has the lowest amount of tax revenue relative to GPD then in the last 60 years. So in relative terms we either allow taxes to raise to close the gap or we cut the federal government to bone, even then it is likely to not cover the deficit.
As far as letting the states handle everything, I think in some cases you are looking at a recipe for disaster. 50 depts of transportation? 50 FAA’s? 50 of this and that? talk about a buerocratic nightmare of wading through 50 different state’s laws to do anything and the duplication of effort.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11/04/security-entourage-earning-epic-reputation-ahead-obama-india-visit/
White House spokesman Tommy Vietor shot down the $200 million-a-day figure — to put the outrageous sum in context, that’s 5 million times Rachael Ray’s recommended $40 a day.
“The numbers reported in this article have no basis in reality. Due to security concerns, we are unable to outline details associated with security procedures and costs, but it’s safe to say these numbers are wildly inflated,” Vietor said.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell also outright rejected the claim that 34 warships would patrol the Mumbai coast while Obama is in town.
“I think there has been a lot of creative writing that’s been done on this trip over the last few days,” he said. “We obviously have some support role for presidential travel … but I will take the liberty this time of dismissing as absolutely absurd, this notion that somehow we are deploying 10 percent of the Navy, some 34 ships and an aircraft carrier in support of the president’s trip to Asia — that’s just comical.
So, Bob, a White House spokesman says something and we’re just supposed to accept it. Right. Pull my other finger.
Vladislaw, I’m well aware of the difference between discretionary and non-discretionary spending. As you noted, to cut non-discretionary spending, they have to change the law. Wow, I wonder who in DC has the power to write and change laws. Could it be Congress? In other words, just because it’ll require passing a law, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible to cut non-discretionary spending. It’s difficult, yes, but not impossible. It’d be a lot easier if Obama shows some leadership and comes up with his set of recommendations. That would give members of Congress some cover from demagoguery in 2012.
The Bush tax cuts were passed to stimulate the economy following the recession that began in 2000. They worked. However, spending by irresponsible members of Congress (controlled by Republicans until Jan 2007) and Bush outstripped the increases in revenue. The Republicans became as bad as the Democrats at spending, and when the Democrats regained control of Congress in 2007 and the White House in 2009, they proved they could be even worse.
As to the surplus during the Clinton years, it was largely illusionary. If you examine the national debt figures, you’ll find the debt increased every single year during the Clinton Administration. This was due to the accounting tricks DC regularly pulls. At the time, they took the excess revenues collected in Social Security taxes and “invested” in treasury notes, then spent the money. This has been going on since the 1960s and is why the idea of a “Social Security Trust Fund” or lock box (as Al Gore called it) is a myth. There’s nothing in there but a bunch of IOUs. Starting this year (6 years ahead of previous projections), those IOUs started coming due because SS tax revenues were insufficient to cover the expenditures.
Social Security is a mess because the Ponzi scheme is on the verge of collapsing. About the only things that might delay the collapse would be to raise the minimum retirement age, currently 62, to something like 65 and the full retirement age to 70. They’re probably going to have to do something like means test SS and Medicare as well. Medicare is in even bigger trouble than SS. My wife is a nurse and my sister is the office manager for four doctors. They decided two weeks ago to split up their practice (costing my sister her job as well as other staffers) with two of them no longer accepting Medicare patients. Things are bad with Medicare and the Obamacare laws are looking to make things worse. Eliminating the rampant fraud in Medicare would be a good place to start but even that would barely make a dent in the problem.
Larry, I goofed up the carriage return making it harder to skim my comment, but if you look carefully, you’ll see that the second quote was from the Pentagon.
So, Bob, a White House spokesman says something and we’re just supposed to accept it. Right. Pull my other finger.
No, clearly you should instead believe anonymous Indian government officials, as long as they say something you want to believe.
If you examine the national debt figures, you’ll find the debt increased every single year during the Clinton Administration.
True, but the size of the increases declined substantially, and the debt shrank as a fraction of GDP.
Medicare is in even bigger trouble than SS.
Yes. And the GOP is sweeping into Washington on the strength of commercials that attacked the Dems for cutting Medicare. One I saw had a frame with two statements (about the Democratic incumbent’s vote for Obamacare):
Government-run Health Care!
Medicare Cuts!
As if Medicare wasn’t the actual government-run health care program! Even Rand Paul came out for higher Medicare reimbursements for doctors (like himself). If anything, the new GOP votes in Congress are going to accelerate the growth in Medicare spending.
Tax cuts get you elected, not budget cuts. As long as it is easier to get a vote to cut taxes than to cut the budget, I really do not see any real changes coming. Ronald Reagan was the first to chop tax rates and put it on the US’s credit card because he found it was pretty hard to get cuts. It was a winning strategy and Dick Cheney said deficits don’t matter. Bush Sr. was going to follow the same strategy right up to the time he said gosh, i guess i have to raise taxes and he didnt get re elected.
I am really waiting to see a serious attempt at reducing our debt levels, but i am sure i will be disappointed. The tea party found, it was easy to get elected by promising tax cuts and budget cuts. But wait until the lobbyists come in herds when a program gets talked about being cut and the corporations who depend on that program cry about job losses et cetera. I have a feeling you will see they will champion the tax cut to death and wiggle like a fish on a hook trying to explain why the budget cuts didnt follow. I have yet to hear where the 700 billion is going to come from to pay for the top 2% getting another tax cut. Remember the Bush taxes where passed with a sun set provision. Those tax reductions are done and if more tax cuts are coming those have to be new tax cuts and lets see how they are going to be paid for.
There’s no realistic way Boehner can do anything about Medicare or Social Security. Even if the Republicans had won control of the Senate, Obama would just veto anything he didn’t like. Besides, it’s political suicide – any attempt to fix the Social Security Ponzi scheme or Medicare would just give ammo for the Democrats to demogague with in 2012 unless Obama puts forward his proposals for reform. Fat chance of that.
Oh, I don’t know. There is certainly no way that minor tinkering around the edges is going to solve the real long-term unsustainability problems of Social Security and MediCare, but Social Security, at least, is fixable, in an indefinitely sustainable way, by doing the following:
1) Prohibit all government employees – federal, state and local – from joining unions or bargaining collectively.
2) Leave military retirement/pension system as is.
3) Transfer all other public employees – especially legislators and career bureaucrats – from their current pension plans to Social Security. Allow all currently working public employees to supplement expected Social Security pensions with 401(k) plans – non-matching – and any other mechanism, e.g., IRA’s, currently available to workers in the private sector. Future pension payments to all currently retired public employees will be paid at the Social Security rate appropriate to their salary history when previously employed.
4) All current real assets of goverment employee retirement funds would become property of the U.S. Treasury and be liquidated in an orderly fashion over a period of not less than 20 years as an additional funding source.
5) All current public employees would get paid healthcare benefits equivalent to the average of what private sector plans offer. Their required contribution toward the cost of these plans, from wages, would be equal to the average of such contributions by private sector workers.
6) Raise Minimum early retirement age to 65 for workers now 55 or under.
7) Raise Minimum full-benefit retirement age to 68 for workers now 55 or under.
8) Index both retirement ages by growth in average life expectancy – currently ca. 10 weeks/yr.
This plan has several major political pluses:
1) It requires no cut in benefits to current Social Security beneficiaries – effectively cutting “power” to the “third rail of American politics.”
2) It de-Ponzifies Social Security by essentially fixing either the average length of funded retirement or the average percentage of lifespan spendable in covered retirement – depending upon how the life expectancy indexing is done. The current arrangement has both of these numbers expanding indefinitely.
3) It enhances social equity in the larger society by putting everyone, except soldiers – who deserve their better pension deal – on the same footing. Right now, Social Security is the booby-prize pension system for we rubes who were too dim-witted to join AFSCME and spend our lives in a cushy government job where you have access to appreciably richer plans and don’t have to contribute as much toward your eventual payout. This approach is, in essence, right-wing class warfare – don’t eat the rich, eat the feds (and the state and the local). As private-sector employees have become more aware of how much of their taxes are going to support career DMV clerks in luxe retirements, the politics of this become progressively – pun intended – more doable.
4) It would discourage politics and government service as financially preferred long-term career paths. If you can’t stack up insanely rich benefits in office, the tendency will be not to make a career of officeholding. This will, of course, be massively unappealing to current officeholders, but so are things like foregoing earmarks and it looks likely that the current public mood will force that on a notably reluctant political class. Taking most of the rest of their special goodies seems to be only incrementally more difficult. Just demagogue the hell out of these people at every opportunity. Ask a Democrat to show you how if you require instruction.
Well, enough for now. I’ll save fixing healthcare for another post.
Don’t look now, but Bob Etheridge is still kicking.
They found some more votes. Oddly there are irregularities in early voting, and even in a county that was 60% for Bad Bob, I find it odder still that ALL the found votes were FOR the inCRUMBent! And this is not new territory for NC.
This same kind of scenario played out in our state assembly, in this same area, just a few years ago, with another Democrat candidate.
There’s another reason to go after perks like military flights. Removal of these perks encourages an attitude of humility and frugality. How can we expect our politicians to be conservative in expenditures, when we allow them all these perks?
The right choice for Pelosi would have been to refuse the recommendation of the Secret Service and fly commercial. Ultimately, this is yet another example of the lack of judgment that politicians such as Pelosi have shown for a long time.