For all of the talk from left and right about budget cuts, I remain amazed that so many people are missing the basic “K Street - Congressman in Your Pocket” reality of how government discretionary spending actually happens.
Virtually every significant project paid for by the U. S. government has at least two people intensely invested in its continued funding – a lobbyist and a member of Congress put there with money from said lobbyist.
This is why we see comments like this from a “budget-cutting conservative” concerned about the multibillion-dollar amphibious Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle panned by many military leaders:
Rep. W. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), new chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on seapower and expeditionary forces, said Thursday that he and others "are going to be opposing the secretary and his decision." He added, "The need for the core capability of the Marines'' - to attack on land from the sea - "has not gone away . . . but how many we buy may be negotiated."
Representative Akin “owes” General Dynamics. Do we really think this $3 billion+ part of the budget will just go away?
Or how about farm subsidies. My former Congressman, the truly ignorant Steve King from Iowa, goes after a budget-busting $5 million of organic farm subsidies, while pushing to keep intact $5 billion the primary farm subsidy program going largely to “Big Ag” and absentee landowners:
Given the committee’s goal of cutting spending by $2.5 trillion over 10 years, “it is remarkable they would try to cut a program with less than $5 million remaining while proposing to let a $5 billion a year program like direct payments go unscathed, especially at a time of high prices” for commodities, said Ferd Hoefner, policy director of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
Really, do you think these congress members and their favorite lobbyists will take these cuts lying down?
This is why Mike Pence is attacking the real cause of our budget crisis, taxpayer-funded abortions.