Ye gods. Sometimes I wonder how on earth it is that humans have survived for as long as they have. Still, every once in a while I get that warm feeling in my heart when some group of innocents embark upon a path of learning an enlightenment.
Mark Schmidt tells us one such tale about the stirrings of knowledge by those on the right wing of American blogging politics.
A Million Here, A Million There
After just a few days, the project has identified over $14 billion in spending that could be cut, a small down payment on the $200 billion reconstruction project. And a lot of it is true waste, mostly the earmarked projects in HUD and Transportation spending that were under control in the late 1990s but have exploded recently. (Who knew there were so many bike trails being built?)
Wonder Twins Power Unite!
Because, there's nothing like the combined power of the right wing blogosphere to get down to the raw issue - to uncover the seedy underbelly of government waste.
Or, maybe not.
But cut all these million-dollar boondoggles and you would still never have anything close to the cost of reconstruction. I did a quick skim of the list, and there are only three items that amount to more than bike trails. One is the seismic upgrade of the Golden Gate bridge, a billion-dollar undertaking which its would-be cutter says could be paid for by raising tolls. One participant proposes to eliminate all domestic violence programs (and runs an anti-feminist blog apparently dedicated to the repeal of the Violence Against Women Act) – that would save $3.1 billion over five years. Another wants to cut a light rail project in Charlotte, NC, but the $2.8 billion ascribed to that project includes state as well as federal costs. Federal funding for that was only $30 million last year. So just by looking closely at the two biggest suggestions, that $14 billion becomes $8 billion.
But this project should continue, because it will provide participants with an education in the actual insignificance of domestic discretionary spending, of which "pork" is a small part, in the bigger context of war, reconstruction, and tax cuts. Eventually participants will grasp the truth of what budget expert Stan Collender writes this week in his National Journal column
So, we can take the tact of the valiant members of the Fighting 101st - scraping, trimming and ultimately hacking programs that are seriously needed. Or we can come up with 145 BILLION dollars with one fell swoop.
There's lot of other good stuff at the Center on Budget site today, including a paper showing that just the two tax cuts that are scheduled to go into effect in January, and that benefit almost exclusively the very wealthy (97% of benefits go to households with incomes over $200,000), would cost $146 billion over ten years. How about that as a place to start paying for reconstruction? Also, a good breakdown of the demographics of people affected by Katrina, by poverty, race, lack of vehicle, etc.
The Right Wing BlogoSphere: "Looking for our keys only where the light is since 2001"
Courage, my Right Wing Friends. Courage.
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