If all those Austerity Auctioneers could wave a magic wand
and send all us Govt Workers -- to the Unemployment lines,
in one, svelte Discretionary sweep -- WHAT would that solve?
Where would we all go to compete for those Unemployment Checks?
Where would kids go to get those oh so important technical skills, of the 21st Century?
Who would tell the salmon, which way to swim, when?
Sure would free up even MORE money for MORE wars though, wouldn't it?
2010 United States federal budget
Wikipedia
larger image
A pie chart representing spending by category for the US budget for 2010
Discretionary spending is Not the problem.
Military spending, with NO equivalent Tax base, is.
Social Security is Not the problem -- it has its own dedicated source of funding.
Military spending on wars, for the sake of wars, are the problem.
How can we win a war, with no clearly defined enemies or 'winnable' objectives.
How can we win a war -- against an Idea ?
The 'War on Terror' is like the 'War on Drugs', in that way. How can you defeat an Idea?
Titling at windmills, hoping they'll stop spinning. Yet the wind just does what it will.
No worries though, Military Spending is exempt from the proposed Spending Freeze. Some addictions are just too hard to kick, I guess. That is the nature of the Status Quo.
It. is. very. difficult. to Change.
Obama to Call for Five-Year U.S. Federal Spending Freeze
By Roger Runningen and Nicholas Johnston, Bloomberg -- Jan 25, 2011
President Barack Obama will propose tonight a five-year freeze of non-security discretionary spending as a way to reduce the federal budget deficit.
[...]
The freeze would trim the federal deficit by $400 billion over 10 years, said an administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. It wouldn’t apply to spending for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Homeland Security, the Defense Department or interest payments on the national debt. Discretionary spending outside security accounts for about 14 percent of Obama’s budget.
[...]
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Obama’s freeze leaves government spending too high.
"The problem is it freezes in place the extraordinary spending increase of the last two years," McConnell said.
Republicans don't like the proposed 'Spending Freeze' -- they say it doesn't 'Freeze Enough'
Must Freeze. Spending. More.
Must Rollback. The Freezing!
What's this? Have Republicans Leaders flash-frozen their rusty pipes?
(Or perhaps, they finally read the latest opinion polls on Military Spending instead.)
There are rumblings that they just might cut that golden-calf, bucket of money. The very same one, that up til now was their verboten, Untouchable trough, for favors:
Republicans Split Over Plans to Cut Defense Budget
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and THOM SHANKER, NYTimes -- Jan 26, 2011
To hear the Republican leadership tell it, the once-sacred Pentagon budget, protected by the party for generations, is suddenly on the table. But a closer look shows that even as Speaker John A. Boehner and Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, insist on the need for military cuts, divisions have opened among Republicans about whether, and how much, to chop Pentagon spending that comes to more than a half trillion dollars a year.
Well isn't that a kick in the plumbing. The Gophers may lead the anti-war spending charge. WTF !?!
Boehner and Cantor are thinking about putting the Pentagon budget ON the Table!
Go figure.
Could be the opening salvo, for them sneaking Social Security and Medicare budgets onto their chopping block Austerity table too? (most likely)
Or could be that they have finally realized, along with much of America,
Discretionary spending is Not the problem --
Military spending, with NO equivalent Tax base, is the problem.
Will wonders ever cease. ... Will the senseless destructive spending?
Society should focus our common 'civilized spending' on promoting Human Dignity and Human Safety
-- instead dedicating our common wealth on destroying those things.
Civilized Sanity, would ultimately required this.