Why Can't Republicans Name One Thing to Cut in the Budget?

Why Can't Republicans Name One Thing to Cut in the Budget?
JAN 10 2011, 11:45 AM ET1
You're a newly elected Republican congressman. For the last six months, you've been railing against trillions in federal spending. Once elected, you've promised to cut $100 billion from the budget in the first fiscal year. Now it's prime time, the mic is in your face, the camera closes in, and asked for one program to cut, you slam your first and respond with patriotic passion ...

"I don't think I have one off the top of my head."

I'm not imagining a hypothetical, here. Nor am I picking on some newly minted carpenter-turned-Tea-Party-congressman who got blindsided on his way out of the Cannon building. Instead I'm quoting from House Speaker John Boehner's answer the world's most predictable question from NBC's Brian Williams: Name one program you'd like to cut.

A broken campaign promise isn't cause to wheel out the fainting couches. It is, depressingly, a prerogative of the winning party. Republicans, who have already halved their promised spending cuts for this year and exempted health care's repeal from their own budget rules, are putting that prerogative to good use in their first two weeks in office.

But with the Democratic president on record proposing a salary freeze for the entire government and the Republican leadership on record proposing nothing off the top of my head, you have to wonder why the GOP is refusing to get specific.

The progressive interpretation would be that the right is totally hackish. The moderate progressive interp would be that the right doesn't want to go on record with spending cuts before the official list is out. The pragmatic interpretation might be that the $60 in planned FY2012 cuts are up to Rep. Paul Ryan, and Boehner doesn't want to step on the toes of his budget chair. But still, the head of the Republican Party really can't name a single government program he'd like to cut?

It's not as though this promise is an empty shell. You can find some substance in this paper, How to Cut the Budget, by Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation. He proposes $343 billion in available cuts for the next year -- six times more aggressive than the GOP's promises -- from $15 billion in agricultural subsidies to $26 billion in reduced tax credits for low-income families.

Do I agree with these cuts for this year's budget? No, I don't. And to be fair, even Riedl acknowledged that most of the cuts were impossible with Obama in the White House, or unlikely to survive the special interests inherent to Washington. The point of the paper, he told me, was to say: Of course health care, Social Security and defense dominate the budget, but we can still find major cuts in non-security domestic spending.

Riedl offers an obvious menu for even the most clueless conservative representatives looking for illustrative cuts. Why aren't House Republicans ordering off the list?

How about this for an answer?

Monday, January 10, 2011
Slush fund accounts of major US politicians identified and seized at Vatican Bank (Rome).
Monday, January 10, 2011
http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2010/10/httpalcuinbramerton.html
Alcuin Bramerton Twitter ..... WikiLeaks Master Mirror Sites ..... #solidarity
Alcuin Bramerton profile ..... Index of blog contents ..... Home

Slush fund accounts of major US politicians identified and seized at Vatican Bank (Rome). Connection established with Daniel Dal Bosco RICO indictment which cites Giancarlo Bruno, Silvio Berlusconi & Ban Ki Moon.
On Wednesday 5th January 2011, it emerged that US establishment-related slush fund accounts had been located in, and seized from, the Vatican Bank in Rome. The source of funds for these accounts in almost every instance was found to be the US Treasury.

Beneficiaries of the covert Vatican accounts include Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and each of the Obama children, Michelle Obama's mother, all the Bushes and the Clintons, including Chelsea Clinton, Joe Biden, Timothy Geithner, Janet Napolitano, several US Senators, including Mitch McConnell, several US Congressmen including John Boehner, several US Military Chiefs of Staff, the US Provost Marshal, the US Judge Advocate General, the US Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Roberts, several US Judges, the Pope, and several cardinals.

Big money was found in each of the accounts. The longer the beneficiaries have been in office, the greater the account balances were found to be. They range from a few million USD to more than a billion USD in the case of John Roberts. The total number of slush fund accounts so far identified at the Vatican Bank is said to be between 600 and 700. This number is likely to grow as international élite corruption investigations spread worldwide.

The disclosures have split the Roman Catholic Legatus organisation down the middle. Elizabeth Windsor (Queen Elizabeth II of England) is in the know and is intimately involved in the swirling and fissiparous covert powerplays.

Developing situation updates here (09.01.11), here (09.01.11), here (08.01.11), here (08.01.11), here (08.01.11), here (07.01.11), here (07.01.11), here (06.01.11), here (05.01.11)and here (05.01.11).
Posted by John MacHaffie at 6:36 AM

once the rep take comtrol im sure the entitlements and obama care can both be dealt with obama care done away with and medicare and ss# cut deep !

This is kind of harsh, but it is what I am feeling about this article and our Goverment
and yes even the Goverment in Iraq... Stop getting upset, there is only one thing we can do....


Change does not come from an Election...
It does not matter, what Party you Vote for.... For they are the same

You are looking for Promises that were given in the heat of the moment
These Promises were for one reason, and one reason only..... Your Vote

Wake up People
It is sad that I have to write this..... Sad because we should of already done this...
OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. DAY AND NIGHT, NIGHT AND DAY

Get on your KNEE'S in Prayer
Pray to Our Father that is in Heaven
Lift these people up and pray with all your heart that God will
Open their hearts, and they will be Born Again

For they are Good people, that were lead a stray....
For they are lost and need our Prayers.....

When someone on this site, or a family member of someone on this site
Needs Prayers, Do we not Pray for them? Then why do we not pray for Our leaders
in this Country that was founded By God, For God and for Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savor

All things are Possible For Our Father who art in heaven

He alone can change the Heart of Any Man

We are just as guility as they are, for takening The Word God out of our Schools,
Out of our Work Place and Out of our Lives....

Sad but True, Most of us do not have time for Our God, Our Father, Our Creator

What will you do when he has no time for you?

Pray as if there is no tomorrow, Pray for all mankind
Pray his will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven
Give All Glory to God
In the Name of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savor
Amen

I'LL ADD MY AMEN TO THIS !!! THANK YOU PENNY, YOU ARE SOOOO RIGHT !

I will second that AMEN.

Now just the title of the article, tells me the thing is predicated upon a false assumption to start out with.
"Why Can't Republicans Name One Thing to Cut in the Budget?"
There is not one thing that even needs to be 'Cut', but the question posed should read:
"What things in the budget can be 'Frozen'?"
The budget does not need to be 'Cut', but simply 'Frozen'.
If the entire budget were frozen, meaning no increases for the next 2 years, the budget would be balanced. If it were frozen.... meaning keep the same spending from last year, and lock that into a 'Zero sum budget' and repeal the 'Base line budget'..... then the National Debt would easily be brought to zero in less than 5 years, and the country could then scrap the Federal Reserve and there would no longer be any need for the IRS.
That was the plan of the founders, in the first place, that the Treasury belongs to the people and overseen by Congress, not a private multi-international corporation.
The reason they will not.... Republican or Democrat, is simple.... to reduce the budget, is to reduce debt..... to reduce debt is to reduce the amount of liquidity, under the Fractional Reserve practice of the current Federal Reserve System.

Just sayin'