The Spending-Cuts Scam

Political news junkies are all abuzz about the big November 23 deadline that the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (“super committee”) is up against.  The job of the twelve-member committee is to cut $1.2 trillion from the federal budget over the next ten years.

Only in Washington could anyone take a bad joke like this seriously.  Obama and his socialist allies in Congress increased the national debt by $4 trillion in three years, and the super committee’s big task is to cut $1.2 trillion over ten years?  Make that a very bad joke.  Oh, and by the way, the Democrats are fighting against even the $1.2 trillion figure.

What this is really all about is the Democrats’ new-baseline strategy, which is used to vilify opponents of increased government spending as cruel and calloused.  The far-left politicos in Washington continue to successfully push through legislation guaranteed to bankrupt the nation, then argue that their new gains must be preserved at all costs.

Makes one wonder how 300 million Americans managed to survive before Che Obama came on the scene — or, for that matter, George W. Bush.

Who buys into the new-baseline strategy ploy?  Unfortunately, a majority of congressional Republicans.  Remember all those big cuts Republicans worked so hard to get into the budget?  Psst:  It’s a scam!  As always, federal spending increased this year, even though we were assured that substantial cuts had been made.

Democrats are the enemy, but they aren’t the main problem.  All freedom advocates realize that they have to be vigilant when it comes to pushing back against the Democrats’ insatiable desire to increase government power over its subjects.

The real problem, unfortunately, is the unprincipled, weak-kneed Republicans in Congress who continue to go along with the preposterous idea that the new baseline for arguing about cutting government spending should be the current level of spending.

What we need is a president and a Congress that will implement a plan to cut government spending to the level it was in the year 2000 — for starters.  Then, once that’s been accomplished, they can roll up their sleeves and get to work on making really serious cuts in the federal budget.

I think the delicate term for this exercise is meat axe, and it would be nice to hear at least one politician say it out loud — boldly and without qualification.