At the beginning of the week, I was sure I had heard the best joke that I was going to hear all week. The joke goes like this.
Question: How much coke did Charlie Sheen do?
Answer: Enough to kill Two and a Half Men.
Turns out I was wrong. Though I find this joke to be pretty funny, there was an even bigger joke waiting to be told: Congresses' budget cut proposals. What were the proposals?
Well, House Republicans sent a proposal to cut $61 billion from the budget which the Democrat-led Senate promptly rejected. Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid (D-NV), bemoaned the mean-spirited and draconian cuts that would defund such things as National Public Radio (NPR), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PBS) and the National Endowment for the Arts. Senator Reid went on to cited the annual Cowboy Poetry Festival in northern Nevada as, what I can only assume, he believes to be the best example of the kinds of critical programs that would be lost due to the cuts. But wait, that wasn't the joke. The joke is that $61 billion is less than 2% of the $3.7 trillion budget. Now that my friends is a real joke. It gets better though. Then, the Senate Democrats sent their own proposal of "prudent and reasonable" cuts to the House where the Republican majority defeated it. The total amount of cuts the Democrats were able to identify - $4.5 billion which ("Are you sitting down?") is just a little over 1/10th of a percent of the budget. What both of these proposals amount to are essentially "rounding errors" when compared to the total size of the budget.
So, one week - two big jokes. The only problem is that, while the Charlie Sheen joke was at least witty, the big budget joke is nothing to laugh at. Our politicians better get serious!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Time for a New kind of BRAC - Let's Call It PRAC!
What is BRAC? For those not acquainted with the term, BRAC stands for Base Realignment and Closure and is a government commission that is charged with determining what military facilities can either be closed or realigned in order to save money. The first round took place in 1988 and there have been 5 rounds to date with another planned for 2015. The idea for a commission was to have independent commissioners who would be able to render their decisions without political concerns.
So what do I mean by PRAC? Well we learned last week that the Government Accounting Office (GAO) identified between $100-$200 billion in overlapping, wasteful, or duplicate federal programs. According to the Wall Street Journal which reviewed the report, the GAO found that there are:
So by PRAC I mean Program Realignment and Cancellation which would be an independent commission to to identify duplication, determine program effectiveness, and ultimately determine which programs should be eliminated, consolidated or left alone.
Although the goals of many of these programs appear to be noble, it seems very unlikely that the duplication is justified. Even if all that is accomplished by "PRAC" is consolidation, the savings realized from eliminating the administrative costs of so many separate programs would be, without a doubt, substantial and perhaps this could be accomplished while preserving the portion of their budgets that is actually spent helping citizens and improving our society.
We've got to start somewhere because if we don't, our annual budget deficits and national debt will destroy the country and threaten the future of our children and grandchildren. Isn't "PRAC" a proposal that both conservative and liberals would agree is the right thing to do?
So what do I mean by PRAC? Well we learned last week that the Government Accounting Office (GAO) identified between $100-$200 billion in overlapping, wasteful, or duplicate federal programs. According to the Wall Street Journal which reviewed the report, the GAO found that there are:
- 15 different agencies overseeing food-safety laws
- more than 20 separate programs to help the homeless
- 80 programs for economic development
- 82 federal programs to improve teacher quality
- 80 to help disadvantaged people with transportation
- 47 for job training and employment; and
- 56 to help people understand finances.
So by PRAC I mean Program Realignment and Cancellation which would be an independent commission to to identify duplication, determine program effectiveness, and ultimately determine which programs should be eliminated, consolidated or left alone.
Although the goals of many of these programs appear to be noble, it seems very unlikely that the duplication is justified. Even if all that is accomplished by "PRAC" is consolidation, the savings realized from eliminating the administrative costs of so many separate programs would be, without a doubt, substantial and perhaps this could be accomplished while preserving the portion of their budgets that is actually spent helping citizens and improving our society.
We've got to start somewhere because if we don't, our annual budget deficits and national debt will destroy the country and threaten the future of our children and grandchildren. Isn't "PRAC" a proposal that both conservative and liberals would agree is the right thing to do?
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