I posed this question on Twitter over the past couple of days to see what kind of response I would get. The couple that did answer was very predictable and unspecific. Today's GOP has attacked every social program, infrastructure spending, and even companies that took government loans to save blue collar jobs. The only government program I could find that they support is military spending and all that goes with it.
Going through the list of spending they oppose would take a novel. We all know they describe Social Security and Medicare as Socialism; therefore, oppose it, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. For decades, the right wing has been promoting giving vouchers to families to send their kids to private schools. This directly takes money out of the public schools and damages the public education of all our kids. When spending cuts are on the table, education is at the top almost always. No Child Left Behind was an attempt, quite successfully, to take money from poor schools with poor supplies, and gives it to rich schools, which perform better on standardized tests.
I define a good economy as one that has more money coming in than going out. Building infrastructure helps bring more money into an economy. The right wing calls any type of infrastructure spending as pork barrel spending. Earmarks are money congressmen spend to make their district a little better. I do think that a more vetting procedure is needed to ensure that these earmarks are legitimate and will improve their districts. They should also be brought up from the local and state level for their congressman to promote in the House. But overall, I support earmarks because they help local economies and they only spend about one-tenth of one percent of the national budget.
I believe that Health Care is a major part of the literal definition of Promoting the General Welfare. We hear more often than not from the right wing is that they do not want the government between you and your doctor, but are perfectly happy having a greedy insurance man between you and your doctor. I feel that government does not only have a right, but a responsibility under the Constitution to care for its citizens. The question the right wing screams is 'who is going to pay for this?' The truth is, that instead of you and your employer paying hundreds of dollars each for your coverage to a for-profit insurance company with a large overhead and advertising bill, that does not cover 100% of your bills or cover all legitimate procedures. It would cost everyone much less to pay for only a 4% overhead to a non-profit payee system.
I only mentioned three issues, but the same can be true for the environment, unemployment, creating jobs, immigration, and the list goes on and on. Article 1, Section 8 of The United States Constitution lays out the powers given to the Congress by this historic document. The first paragraph lays out what Congress can spend money on, it states;
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
There are 17 other listed powers, which I won't name here, but basically setting up offices, making coins, declaring war, and more. But the first paragraph is the only part that mentions congressional spending. So to be precise, taxes are collected to pay for Debts, Defense, and the General Welfare of the United States. That is it, just those three things. But this paragraph paints a broad stroke and gives Congress the right to spend tax dollars, just about any way they want. But you wouldn't know that talking to conservative these days. So please, if you can think of anything, anything at all that the right wing would spend tax dollars on other than war, please share, because I am stumped.