The Republicans are proposing a package of budget cuts that is a peculiar mixture of paybacks to the Republican Corporate donors. Like targeting programs that promote increased energy efficiency as a favor fot the Oil Companies that don't want reductions in fuel consumption. Others are ideological targets like the drastic cuts to N.P.R.
Still other cuts seem remarkably cruel, shortsighted, and counter productive. Like the cuts in aid to poor children, and the cuts to community Health Clinics. Paul Krugman explores the perverse Republican logic behind the last category in his column today.
Eat The Future
Republicans don’t have a mandate to cut spending; they have a mandate to repeal the laws of arithmetic.
Which brings me back to the Republican dilemma. The new House majority promised to deliver $100 billion in spending cuts — and its members face the prospect of Tea Party primary challenges if they fail to deliver big cuts. Yet the public opposes cuts in programs it likes — and it likes almost everything. What’s a politician to do?
The answer, once you think about it, is obvious: sacrifice the future. Focus the cuts on programs whose benefits aren’t immediate; basically, eat America’s seed corn. There will be a huge price to pay, eventually — but for now, you can keep the base happy.
If you didn’t understand that logic, you might be puzzled by many items in the House G.O.P. proposal. Why cut a billion dollars from a highly successful program that provides supplemental nutrition to pregnant mothers, infants, and young children? Why cut $648 million from nuclear nonproliferation activities? (One terrorist nuke, assembled from stray ex-Soviet fissile material, can ruin your whole day.) Why cut $578 million from the I.R.S. enforcement budget? (Letting tax cheats run wild doesn’t exactly serve the cause of deficit reduction.)
Once you understand the imperatives Republicans face, however, it all makes sense. By slashing future-oriented programs, they can deliver the instant spending cuts Tea Partiers demand, without imposing too much immediate pain on voters. And as for the future costs — a population damaged by childhood malnutrition, an increased chance of terrorist attacks, a revenue system undermined by widespread tax evasion — well, tomorrow is another day.
Now that we've seen the Republicans' proposed budget cuts we can tell that waste wasn't their primary target from the Sacred Cows the Republicans left unscathed. Sacred Cows like $62 Billion for subsidies for giant Oil Companies, or $45 Billion for Ethanol Producers, or $3.5 Billion for a jet fighter engine even the Pentagon doesn't want (but much of the work is being done in Eric Cantor's district).
The Republicans are trying to shortchange the country's future to paper over their having just extended the10 year tax holiday for the wealthiest 3% of Americans.