Federal Budget Watch
The Washington Post’s Stephen Dinan says that Republican senators “laid down a $125 billion challenge to the Senate yesterday, proposing a package of spending cuts and delays in other programs they say would offset Hurricane Katrina costs.” Here’s the details of the plan that we know of thus far:
The seven Republican senators’ plan includes five major savings: a $16 billion cut in discretionary non-defense, non-homeland security spending; delaying the full prescription-drug benefit by two years, with the exception that low-income seniors will get their benefit on time; raising Medicare costs for seniors who make more than $80,000, or $160,000 per couple; removing earmarked projects from the recently passed highway bill; and freezing the cost-of-living adjustment for all federal civilian employees.
“I am totally confident that the Republican base is upset and angry about the fiscal indiscipline that we practiced here in the Congress and the mortgaging of our children and our grandchildren’s futures,” said Sen. John McCain, (R-AZ) and one of the group’s leaders. The cuts would total $125 billion over two years, the senators said. They said they will force votes as the budget process plays out this year and, possibly, on another hurricane-related emergency spending request expected by the end of the year.
I like what I’m seeing thus far. I chided Sen. McCain for not voting for Tom Coburn’s amendment but I’m with him in this bigger budget battle. Coupled with the expanding tax revenues, the budget deficit could be trimmed quite a bit by the time President Bush leaves office.
But some House Republicans have said they cannot support a cuts package, and Democratic leaders in both chambers remain opposed to cuts, with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, (D-NV), calling them “immoral.” “It’s interesting to me to note that for all the billions that we’ve spent in Iraq, no one looked for offsets for that,” he said. “No offsets for the tax cuts that have taken place. And, in fact, the week after we do the budget cuts, they’re going to then do more tax cuts. The Republicans simply have different priorities than we have.”
Harry, when you’re right, you’re right. Republicans have different priorities than moonbat Democrats. I don’t want to think what this country would be like if left to the Looney Left. Let’s compare priorities:
Conservatives want to win the GWOT while the Party of incoherent Thoughts wants to…Well, I’ll tell you as soon as I can figure out what they stand for. That might mean pulling the troops out ASAP or it might mean shifting our troops to Afghanistan to fight “the real war on terror” or it might mean agreeing with President Bush’s strategy or it might mean none of the above.
Conservatives want to confirm judges that will actually look at the US Constitution as the basis for their Supreme Court rulings instead of randomly picking foreign court rulings that suit your preference.
Conservatives want to keep taxes low so real people can have more freedom in choosing what they want to do. Democrats want to steal the peoples’ money, spend it on everything that their looney base wants, thereby subjecting the American people to be pawns to their tax and spend habits.
Given all that, I’ll proudly stand with my conservative brethren anytime.
On the budget front, Sen. Norm Coleman emailed his supporters that he’s “been appointed to a working group that will look for ways to cut the federal budget to offset the cost of hurricane relief. “Nothing is off the table” in those discussions, Coleman, R-MN, said Friday morning in a conference call with Minnesota reporters. One area that most likely won’t be cut is defense spending, but everything else should be fair game, Coleman said. He mentioned some possibilities, including a delay in pay increases for federal employees or an across-the-board freeze or cut in federal spending.
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Coleman said Congress will also be looking at some cases of alleged government waste. An example is the defense travel system, which increased its spending from $273 million to nearly $500 million. The system reportedly does not always identify the lowest possible fare for a trip or seek economical lodging. “Even for government, five hundred million is a lot of money,” he said.
Having a get-things-done senator on this panel certainly brings a smile to my face. He’s a doer with an already impressive list of accomplishments in his 3 years service.
Cross-posted at Let Freedom Ring