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!
That dog don't hunt as they say in Texas. Bush spent money like, pardon the pun matey "a drunken sailor". Now that austerity is all the rage, fiscal conservatism is the new old orthodoxy. Rubbish. Meanwhile Petey's stalking Muslims. The real shocker is Republicans ' track record on the issue. Shine a spotlight on the hypocrisy. Republican administrations consistently outspend Democrats as a function of GDP since Ike. Facts my boys, facts.
ReplyDeleteOkay. However, this isn't about history - left or right version - but current reality. My point is neither side is serious about getting our fiscal house in order. In the past, we have been saved by a surge in economic growth due to tax cuts - Reagan, Clinton, Bush II - which led to higher revenues and we were never really forced to address the deficit/debt issue head-on. In our current economic situation and with the way the Administration is addressing it (or not), we won't have that same luxury.
ReplyDeleteRep Peter King is a topic for another day.
Oh and by the way, I forgot to say thanks for the comment, Mate!
ReplyDelete