Like the guy who has had too many “Baconators” the Federal Government needs to be downsized. It has been on a spending binge for too long. Our Congressmen are like alcoholics who just can’t stop spending on new programs. Do you know why? They think that they can spend their way to reelection.
But in 2010 they all, Democrats and Republicans, got a rude awakening. The Republicans seemed to have learned their lesson and got religion. On the other hand the Democrats seem to be living in an alternate reality. Can you believe that Nancy Pelosi, who helped engineer the Porkulus bill, thinks that her party can regain the majority and that she can regain the Speaker’s gavel? She sees the continued profligate spending as her path to a return to power. She doesn’t like being marginalized by the Republican majority. After all, isn’t power the Democrats birthright?
With the growing power of Conservatives and Tea Partiers in the Republican caucus the writing is on the wall. Let’s look at Obama’s back-pedaling on the budget. In February the White House published a massive budget document that was immediately panned by the Congress. In fact, the Senate voted 97-0 against it.
Then we had the threatened government shutdown that was averted at the 11th hour with a bi-partisan agreement on spending cuts. This had been preceded with what seemed like endless negotiations, threats and insults.
Following this debacle the Republicans in the House produced a budget framework that passed the House by a 235-191 margin. It called for spending cuts of $6 trillion over ten years. The President immediately made a “big speech” that sounded more like campaign rhetoric than leadership. In his speech he insulted the very Republicans that he had invited. Paul Ryan told Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, that Barack Obama had “poisoned the well.
As spring turned to summer the budget situation became entangled in the debt crisis. After more endless negotiations an agreement was reached that seemed to give the Republicans the better of the battle. Again, we had threats and insults from each side of the political spectrum.
So now we come to the fall during which we’ll have round two of the 2012 budget battle. With the positions seemingly carved in stone, it will be a long several months.
Here’s part of problem as this observer sees it. Let’s understand several salient facts. Most politicians love to spend money. It greases the skids of their reelections. It makes them feel good. It allows them to tell the voters that “I’m working for you, my friends”.
Bureaucrats love to expand their role and by doing so their power base. They conspire with their favorite politicians to enhance and expand their departments. By doing so they enhance and expand their reputations. So departments, agencies and commissions add powers and oversight to areas and activities that were not in the original bills. Remember, the rules makers implement the laws not the legislators.
The Dodd-Frank bill has spawned an entire metropolis of committees, agencies and commissions. There are so many rules and regulations to write that at least half will not be ready by the deadline set in the law. Obamacare rules and regulations run to thousands of pages. And here’s a real surprise: none of them are subject to the administration’s own regulatory review.
It’s long past time for a complete Congressional review of every department, agency and commission with an eye toward pruning the unnecessary and unknown suckers that have sprung up to suck dollars from the pockets of the American taxpayers. Sporadic spending cut battles really don’t cut real dollars from the budget. They just lower the trajectory of spending. It’s time to roll back our outlay of dollars and actually cut spending and the unnecessary bureaucrats that come with it.