If we can't kill farm subsidies, what can we kill?
Government support for agricultural research and food safety can be justified. But direct subsidies to farmers can’t. If subsidies ended tomorrow, wheat would still be grown in Kansas. Subsidies qualify as “low hanging fruit” in cutting federal spending. What’s instructive is that no one is doing it.
Over the years, Congress has played a shell game. When one subsidy appears unwarranted, it’s erased and replaced with another. Thus, we’ve had set-asides, price supports, direct payments, counter-cyclical payments and more. The shell game continues. The Senate Agriculture Committee eliminated “direct payments” and diverted most savings into a new subsidy (“agriculture risk coverage”) and expanded crop insurance.
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Where shall we get the money to pay our debts....
Lets look at the following list of departments, NONE of which are authorized by the Constitution as a function of government:
Where shall we get the money to pay our debts....
Lets look at the following list of departments, NONE of which are authorized by the Constitution as a function of government:
The Department of Labor, which does no actual labor, has spent $102,157,000,000 this fiscal year; as of June 2011
The Dept of Education, which educates nobody: 46,058,000,000
The Dept of Energy, which produces no energy: 25,766,000,000
The Dept of Housing & Urban Development; which build our fine urban slums: 46,149,000,000
The Dept of Justice, which produces no justice: 23,084,000,000
The Dept of the Interior, which does...? What?: 9,862,000,000
The Dept of Transportation, which subsidizes Amtrack: 54,766,000,000
The International Assistance Program, which apparently mostly assists warlords and terrorists: 15,876,000,000
NASA, which seems to be pretty much out of a job now: 13,034,000,000
The National Science Foundation, which doesn't seem to produce any actual science: 5,037,000,000
Let's see....
102,157,000,000
46,058,000,000
25,766,000,000
46,149,000,000
23,084,000,000
9,862,000,000
54,766,000,000
15,876,000,000
13,034,000,000
5,037,000,000
============
341,789,000,000
There ya go! Problem Solved! This also excludes all of the golden parachute benefits of all of the bureaucrats!
Washington has a spending problem. Tax cuts don't increase deficits anymore than tax increases decrease deficits. Deficits are decreased by spending less. I wonder how many of the folks who quote this nonsense have ever budgeted their own money. If they find they are spending more than they take in, do they demand raise from their boss?
No President of the United States can create either a budget deficit or a budget surplus. *All spending bills originate in the House of Representatives* and all taxes are voted into law by Congress. This means Bill Clinton did not balance the budget, the Republicans did.
Democrats controlled both houses of Congress before Barack Obama became president. The deficit he inherited was created by the Congressional Democrats, including Senator Barack Obama, who did absolutely nothing to oppose the runaway spending. He was one of the biggest of the big spenders.
Well, well, well.....since the Democrats have controlled the purse strings of congress since 2006, it would appear that Obama is merely continuing the slow destruction of our economy that was started by the democrat's. Why is it they can't take the blame for things when they go badly as fast as they take the credit "if" things go better? Oh, and by the way, unemployment was under 7% near the end of the Bush administration, the deficit was actually only about $400 billion, and the government wasn't in the car business!