Is America about to enter an age of austerity?
The federal government, and the citizens its many services and programs benefit, could be in line for a trillion dollar budget cut, 44 percent cuts for every department and program, or unlimited reductions in “entitlements” like Social Security and Medicare that have become more important than ever as a social safety net for Americans struggling in a weak economy. That is, if the agendas of congressional Republicans and the bipartisan presidential commission on “fiscal responsibility” are successfully implemented.
Having seized control of Congress last November on a platform of budget cuts and spending reductions, Republicans are beginning to speak freely of what constitutes their “wishlist” for ways to slash federal spending. And for a White House seeking to regain political footing in the “center,” they could be more willing to listen to GOP proposals than many once imagined.
The scope of early Republicans chatter on spending is immense.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R_AL) said he “honestly” believes a 30 percent “across the board” cut in federal spending could be a goal, meaning over one trillion dollars in government spending would need to be eliminated. Shelby also floated the as-yet unique idea of cutting most programs instituted since 1980.
“This is a road to financial destruction,” Shelby said. “No family could operate like that. … We continue to borrow instead of cutting spending. The day of reckoning is coming.”He said tough choices have to be made.
Shelby said government should streamline.
“I honestly believe we could cut 30 percent across the board,” he said.
He also said programs that were started 20 years ago need to be reviewed and analyzed to see if the individual programs are still working.
“We don’t know if a program we created in 1980 is still working today,” he said.
Shelby’s comments are typical of contemporary Republican ideology, but they are striking given his own ongoing political fight to force the government to spend half-a-billion dollars on a NASA rocket program in his home state of Alabama that has been dubbed obsolete by the agency.
Newly elected tea party favorite Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky has said he wants an “ironclad rule” that the federal government must be balanced each year going forward if he is to support the upcoming vote to raise the debt ceiling. This year, a “balanced budget” rule would mean 44 percent cuts for every government agency and program, including Social Security and Medicare.
I think an ironclad rule that we will balance the budget from here on after, and that’s what it’s going to take. Not a rule that they can break. You know, they passed pay-as-you-go, they broke it 700 times in the late nineties and the early part of this century. It has to be a very strict rule, so we have to have different rules that they are forced to obey.
A more detailed proposal from a Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee spells out specific targets for what could be as much as $150 billion in savings over the next five years. Targets for this plan include a massive reduction in the Pentagon’s procurement budget and a 10% cut in the federal workforce.
But the rush for austerity is a bipartisan contagion, and that has left-leaning groups and organizations concerned about President Obama’s reaction to the GOP proposals and the suggestions laid out in the final report of the president”s deficit commission.
The outline from the “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” adopts many conservative proposals and tacks strongly to the “center” on the debate over federal spending, including in its report controversial recommendations to slash the government workforce by 10 percent through attrition and cut Social Security and Medicare through raising the retirement age and trimming benefits.
With the president yet to make specific proposals based on the debt commission’s suggestions, advocates for federal employees, Social Security and Medicare are rushing to lobby the White House and seek to enter into what has been a center-right conversation on spending cuts.
With the president’s State of the Union address a week from next Tuesday, a broad coalition of organized labor and activist organizations are publicly urging the president to take Social Security cuts and other commission recommendations off the table , worried that the GOP Congress and success of the recent lame-duck congressional session that was highlighted by concessions to Republicans on taxes and spending will influence the White House reaction to the proposals.
A broad coalition of labor unions and liberal groups has launched an intense lobbying campaign directed at the White House in advance of President Obama’s State of the Union address.
These groups are concerned about Obama’s taciturn response to the proposal by his fiscal commission to gradually increase the retirement age and use a different calculation for cost-of-living adjustments.
………………………………………………..
Now that Republicans control the House and Obama is facing reelection, the political dynamic is different and liberal groups fear the president might be willing to cut a deal on Social Security. Labor unions and liberal groups worry Obama could endorse a boost in the retirement age or a change in cost-of-living adjustments when he discusses strategies for reducing the federal deficit later this month.
“Everybody and their cousin is talking to the White House about this,” said a Democratic strategist involved in the lobbying campaign. “Nobody in the progressive world thinks the president ought to endorse the Bowles-Simpson Social Security stuff. People feel very strong about it and have been working it very hard.
“No one knows for sure where the White House is,” said the strategist. “Social Security has been the crown jewel of progressive policy over the last century. Just because so many people voted for the Bowles-Simpson plan and Obama hasn’t said anything specifically about the Social Security recommendations, groups are doing an all-out push.”
When you don’t value all people it’s easy to cut programs that provide assistance when they are in need. When you don’t believe in a safety net it’s easy to slash “across the board”. When your constituents are the wealthiest of the wealthy you really have nothing to fear. They got your back.
Republicans sure love the constitution – except of course all those pesky parts that they hate
For a bunch that claim to revere that document they seem to want to change it around quite a bit
This is pure theater for their base and it has exactly zero chance of passing – how about working on the jobs rather than waste everyones time posturing for an election thats 2 years away.
They whine. They complain. They obstruct.
But they don’t govern. They jockey for power, then use their position to give away our country to their corporate bosses.
The easiest way to “save” Social Security is not to cut benefits but to raise the cap. But dear me, that might offend the very rich, who don’t need SS because they live on the interest earned by the interest on their capital.
Middle class people are going to find out very fast that it was a mistake to hand the House over to Republicorp, Inc.