Amateur Megalomania

Dramatic cuts part of Bush budget

I’ve been a long time critic of Bush for the spending levels in Washington, despite the old adage of “The President proposes, the Congress disposes.” Bush, perhaps understandably, has not made reduction of domestic spending a priority. While in my more heady moments of blind hope, I have considered the ‘starve the beast’ concept of budget restraint, the Bush budgets have mostly been indefensible.

So we now begin to see some real reductions in spending this year, and the predictable cries of ‘need’ will soon be the focal point of media coverage, at least for a few weeks.

President Bush’s budget will propose slashing grants to local law enforcement agencies and cutting spending for environmental protection, American Indian schools and home-heating aid for the poor, The Associated Press learned Saturday.
….

The budget, the toughest he has written since entering the White House four years ago, seeks about half the increase for school districts in low-income communities he requested last year and a slight reduction for the National Park Service.

Budget discipline requires cuts somewhere, and I would even go so far as to propose cuts across the board, even in defense spending. The problem with the coming Democratic outrage will be the focus on the Bush Tax Cuts and a general push toward increasing the tax revenue at the expense of a recovering economy. It’s remarkably easy to call for tax increases when less than 50% of the population are actually paying taxes. That’s the power of democracy: playing the majority against the minority, and the Democrats are very good at it.

$2.5 trillion dollars in spending. How much is enough? Ask a Leftist. If you listen to them, ALL spending is critical to the survival of humanity. Note how budget cuts quickly become harbingers of genocide.

Well, that’s fair enough. We’ve been spending way too much money on health programs for the poor and disabled for years. We probably ought to just euthanize them. Sure, the upfront costs for the crematoriums will be kind of hefty, but once they’re built, they’ll be paying for themselves with all the money they save us in funding health programs for the poor and disabled. One, two generations max, and we’ll probably be turning a profit.

You can’t have intelligent debate on budget priorities in an atmosphere like this. Any bets on Howard Dean bringing restraint to the party rhetoric?

Filed under: Economics