Federal Government Attempts to 'Cut Spending' Are Laughable

on November 18, 2011 at 9:30 AM

Federal spending is at an all-time high, which means that the United States is borrowing money at an unprecedented rate. Did you know that the government borrows close to half of every dollar that it spends? Yup, they decide to fund research on crack monkeys, and then they put the bill on the national Visa for our kids to pay off someday.

Not cool, Uncle Sam, not cool.

Last summer, when everyone was panicking over the debt ceiling and whether or not the federal government would be shut down over failure to increase our credit limit, a sort of compromise was reached. President Obama would be allowed to borrow more money, and in exchange, a Super Committee would be formed to find places in the budget to cut spending.

(Cutting spending is really a misnomer here, since these particular cuts refer to increased spending. In other words, they’re not going to cut spending at all, just find some places where they can give smaller ‘raises’ than they normally do. It’s insane, I know.)

The Super Committee is a bipartisan group of politicians from both the House of Representatives and the Senate, slated with the task of cutting $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. Since the deficit is expected to go up at least $10 trillion over the same time period, this is like saying that the Super Committee has to find a way to only increase spending by $8.8 trillion instead of $10 trillion.

I don’t know how your budgets work, but in our home, we don’t increase spending without increasing our income. If a necessity goes up in cost, we cut corners elsewhere. It’s called fiscal responsibility.

Come on, politicians ... if we can cut corners out of our own budgets to keep on trekking, surely you can keep from giving ginormous raises to government programs to keep our country on track.

Image via AR McLin/Flickr

Filed Under: barack obama, economy, in the news, media, politics, taxes

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Comments (13)

Facebook comment from Argentina Iraheta

on Nov 18, 2011 at 10:51 AM

Because running a country of millions is exactly like balancing a household checkbook, right. If running the country is so simple to you, please call up congress and tell them what they need to do because you're obviously more qualified to make all of these assertions.

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BooksnBoys

on Nov 18, 2011 at 11:13 AM

@Argentina - um, Jenny DID tell them what to do. Stop spending money they don't have.

And there ARE a lot of similarities between a household and government budgets - it's all basic economic principles. I agree with Jenny. With many of the brightest economic minds in the country telling the government this current method of spending our way into oblivion is unsustainable, it's time to stop doing more of what is NOT working and start trying methods that have been proven to work like cutting taxes, dissolving unnecessary government agencies, and bringing spending under control.

The national debt is around 15 TRILLION. If you have 15 trillion seconds, that's like 30 years. Absolutely ridiculous.

D-Shi-85

on Nov 18, 2011 at 11:29 AM

Interesting note - The US government is "ruled" by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles that are actually COMPLETELY different from those required for corporations. Basically, the goverment is allowed to use "Fund" accounting, which means they only stare at what's on their plate at this very second. They basically ignore the sh*tstorm that they totally see coming. Any other business is legally REQUIRED to account for these kinds of things - they can't turn a blind eye.

HOW in the WORLD is our goverment allowed to make and play by their own blind Monopoly money rules??

on Nov 18, 2011 at 11:52 AM

@BooksnBoys: That is not telling anyone what to do as much as it's telling someone whose house is burning down that they need to stop the fire. They know that they need to stop spending so much, but unless someone can offer a way of doing so that would appease the majority of people in the US today (particularly enough to get anything passed amidst the partisan head-butting in congress), pointing out the obvious is useless.

That's why I said what I said. It's easy to publish an article on a blog and act like you can single-handedly wipe out the nation's economic crisis, but not offering any real solutions (or only regurgitating those that politicians have been selling) will not make anyone take you seriously. They'll either jump on the stating-the-obvious bandwagon or point out that your argument has no point or purpose but to stroke your ego.

And you don't need to educate me on the similarities between household and government economics. I have a degree in economics (focused on how it applies to the environment vis-a-vis public policy), so I know how national/corporate/international/household economics works as well as being able to distinguish the differences, and yet I don't pretend to know the answer to solving the nation's economic woes let alone paint it as an easy fix. I'm sure there are many economists working on that already who have more experience and/or training than I do.

EBee12

on Nov 18, 2011 at 2:36 PM

Too bad Bush wasted the balanced budget Clinton left him.

Nonmember comment from Mike M

on Nov 18, 2011 at 4:12 PM

Jenny Erikson, are you sure that shifting our debts to one area of the population (meaning those U.S. workers who would lose their jobs if the government spending you're supportive of was cut) would help our nation? Or would it be better if those who owned about 87% (or about $43.6 trillion) of the nation's wealth (referring to the top 25% of the nation's wealthiest) didn't have so much of this country's wealth hidden away in their pockets? (Meanwhile, the rest of us are often arguing about whether to cut spending or borrow more money while ignoring the impact that the wealthiest top 25% of our residents has on our nation...) (Searching for "combined wealth of top 1" and/or "wealth and inequality" should provide everyone with some information that's worth looking at.)

Procrastamom

on Nov 18, 2011 at 5:03 PM

@Ebee12 - that is exactly what I was thinking. Jenny would NEVER have written this article in 2007. She would be too busy kissing George Bush's butt and praising his multi-trillion dollar spending on unnecessary wars.

@Argentina - I wish The Stir would hire someone like you to write political articles. Someone--anyone with even a hint of education would be a breath of fresh air around here. Too many Teapublican'ts screaming "no, no, no" on this site, with nary an idea of how to get America back to work, how to fix the struggling economy and most especially how to take care of ALL Americans...not just the ones with 7 or more numbers in front of the decimal in their bank accounts.

on Nov 18, 2011 at 6:10 PM

(Little clarification from my previous post: "if the government spending you're supportive of was cut" should read "if the government spending cuts you're supportive of were enacted." I had the correct thought in my head but the words came out in a way that is misleading.) Procrastamom, my understanding is that most bloggers here typically have liberal (or moderate) views. It's just that Jenny's often quite vocal on political issues compared to others.

on Nov 18, 2011 at 9:25 PM

@Procrastamom: Thank you for that comment. Though I openly admit I am very leftist in what I support, I'm willing to debate someone calmly about their opposing views and give them their dues when they deserve them. As long as no name calling or blanket generalizations are made, I don't usually go too much on the offensive. I adore a good debate, but when someone is using little or no support in their argument and pushing opinion as fact, they lose my attention and respect. If someone turned this article in to even a college/school newspaper, their editor would tear them to shreds over the lack of substantiated evidence, but I guess that's why all of Jenny's articles are labeled "op-ed".

Char_gal4

on Nov 20, 2011 at 9:04 PM

I feel that these politicians are worse than allowing your 13 year old to borrow your credit card. In any case, these guys only think short term. Why pay for good ashphalt that can bear Ohio's winters for three years when you can buy cheap stuff for a third of the cost?

What really angers me is how the disabled (mentally or physically) get cared for. Those who are quite capable but need a boost (schooling, training, special equipment etc) would be a great investment! Instead, the State decides that they aren't "Disabled enough" and tell them to buzz off. Even if one disabled person requires services that cost one person's yearly income tax, this aid would allow them to become a taxpayer! If a person works from 20 to 70 (50 years), that would equal plenty of payback! Even if this person winds up unable to work even after half that amount, the state has gotten back far more than contributed. However, without this aid, these people might wind up on Welfare, Jail (for profit prison = $$$), or the Morgue. That would sap away state money.