Discussing the federal budget is one of those topics that always brings members of both parties closer together.
I've heard many suggestions from people on the internet and in person on where budget cuts should be made. We should stop funding Pakistan. We should stop all foreign aid. We should pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan completely. We should cut spending all over the place but also not increase taxes at all. All of Congress should not take salaries and lose all their benefits until the budget is resolved and social security is saved. Maybe some of these suggestions would be logical, the problem is that I've never heard the people proposing them actually give any numbers on how much money these cuts would save.
Fortunately, I found a website, Third Way, that let's one see how much money the government spends on each of these areas and many more. Below are screenshots that are a summation of spending on each area of the budget:
Looking at the actual numbers, one can see how silly a lot of the easy budget cut proposals really are. Foreign aid sounds like a logical area to cut, after all if we can't afford to keep our own country running why should we be paying for Pakistan? Unfortunately, foreign aid is only 0.6% of the total budget and thus even completely cancelling all aid would not help much to resolve the problem. It would also have some consequences that I don't think most people who propose this consider. Foreign aid is one way that the United States, which, like it or not, is a leading power in the world, holds prestige and stature in the world. Cutting all of our foreign aid would make many countries unhappy with us, potentially resulting in losses of trade and influence throughout the world.
Stopping the wars in Afghanistan and Libya and cutting our remaining aid to Iraq is another popular solution. This is a somewhat fair point, as active combat operations take up around 5% of the total budget, or 25% of the total defense budget. However, it's not possible to just get up and leave without leaving a potential disaster behind. Additionally, it would be quite harmful to America's image in the world if we pulled out and the countries went to hell a couple weeks later. Besides, Barack Obama has already made progress with a withdrawal of most combat troops from Iraq and a scheduled withdrawal from Afghanistan. This proposal is rapidly becoming a moot point, we'll be out soon anyway, it's not going to help with the budget discussion.
As for Libya, it's a relatively minor commitment of US military power that probably won't cost more than a few billion dollars at the maximum. Sadly, that's almost nothing to the defense budget.
The rough equivalent of you throwing a couple staples in a trash can to the Pentagon's budget.
The common call for Congress to fuck off and give up their salaries and benefits, although understandable, also would have no impact on the budget. Congress's total cost is 0.2% of the federal budget and the largest portion of that is for the Library of Congress.
So with these easy decisions off the table because they won't help, what's left? Unfortunately, there are no easy, pain-free ways to solve the problem. The largest five categories of the budget are social security, defense, medicare, low-income assistance, and medicaid. Cutting any of these is obviously problematic, as they will affect the ability of the elderly to retire and reduce already low fixed incomes, affect national security, and potentially leave many without healthcare. The other option would be to increase revenues, most likely through a tax increase of some sort.
This leaves two main proposals by the Democrats and the Republicans. The Democrats http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhave offered to reduce spending in many areas in exchange for some tax increases achieved through removing loopholes that many wealthy individuals use to avoid paying high tax rates. The Republican proposal, stimulated by some of the Tea Party representatives, is much less balanced; no tax increases allowed, fix the budget through spending cuts alone. Additionally, although Democrats have been willing to compromise, the Republicans seem much less willing to allow any ground on tax reform.
It is instructive to look at the state of Minnesota, whose state government is currently shutdown due to budget deadlock, to see why the Republican no compromise stance is problematic. If you're unfamiliar with this issue,
and Governor Dayton would prefer that you not be familiar with this issue,
here's an article summarizing the problem.
Essentially, the Republicans refuse to allow any income tax increase proposals while the Democrats refuse to pass a budget that would require harsh spending cuts to the Minnesota budget that would gut a lot of departments. The current result is that Minnesota has 22,000 state workers laid off for a few weeks now and has lost millions in state revenues http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifdue to closed state parks, the lottery being closed, and other productivity costs. The state's credit rating also took a hit due to this situation, going from AAA to AA+, meaning that any borrowed money will have a higher interest rate in the future. I'm sure that will help with the budget problem a lot.
Although I don't think the Republicans are going to let the same thing happen in the national government, as common sense would hopefully suggest that it's not a great idea to hurt the United State's credit worthiness for a Pyrrhic victory, it does indicate a problem in the government that more and more Americans are noticing. The GOP's polls have worsened due to the budget discussions as it becomes obvious that the Republicans aren't looking for a compromise but are instead seeking an ultimatum-budget cuts and nothing else or the United States has to default.
This is a juvenile move because the cuts that would be needed to balance the budget would have to come from those budget categories mentioned earlier-meaning that they would have a huge negative effect on senior citizens, national security, and the unemployed and extremely ill. The only logical course of action, even if it's still unpalatable, is to increase revenues and cut spending. This allows for the cuts to not be draconian while still setting the United States budget up for the future so that we don't have to have this discussion again in five years.
My fear is that Congress and the President will end up making a compromise like what looks to be happening in Minnesota. Instead of actually fixing Minnesota's budget problems, the compromise is that future revenues will be used now so that the state government can resume operation. While that's nice in some ways, it means that the government might shutdown again in a year or two when that money runs out.
So what can you do? Well, tell your senator or representative that you aren't going to stand for a half-assed compromise for the budget and instead go for a long term solution to the U.S. budget. Yes, it won't be pleasant for either party, but it will be a hell of a lot better than setting the country up for a worse budget crisis in a few years when the compromise money runs out.
That also reminds me, another proposal a lot of people have come up with is to not pay their taxes until the government stops screwing up. That's not a great idea, as one notable actor discovered recently. Pay your taxes.
Even vampires couldn't stop Wesley Snipes, but the IRS managed to do it.
No comments:
Post a Comment