Posted on 02/25/2013 10:04:50 AM PST by blam
Here's What The American People Really Want To Cut From The Federal Budget
Walter Hickey
February 25, 2013
The Pew Research Center conducted a poll in mid-February asking respondents what aspects of federal spending they would prefer to see cut. The poll confirms past surveys that show that although Americans prefer to cut government spending in abstract terms, there aren't many specifics they want slashed.
The poll comes as the cuts known as the sequester begin to start kicking in this week. Under sequestration, every non-exempt aspect of government spending will see a cut. This will generate $1.2 trillion worth of savings over the next 10 years.
But the Pew poll found that respondents were relatively content with the size and scope of most aspects of the government, despite a general urge to cut spending in broad terms.
Pew Research Center For The People & The Press
As the chart shows, the only aspect of government spending respondents wanted cut was foreign aid. Still, USAID is a relatively small portion of the grand federal budget, accounting for a total of only $50.7 billion in fiscal year 2012.
The least controversial portions of government spending were Social Security, veterans' benefits, and education. The latter two are both subject to cuts as a result of the sequester, but only one-tenth of respondents wanted them to be slashed.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Another sucker poll. They didn’t mention specific programs that are hideously wasteful, only general areas of spending that everybody generally favors.
And you see in this poll where the public is so misinformed. Dump money into heart-tugging areas, regardless of results.
If that’s an accurate poll, we are screwed. With the exception of foreign aid, it seems a super-majority of Americans favors either continued or increased levels of federal spending, regardless of the fact we are broke and $17,000,000,000,000 in debt with more than a hundred trillion in unfunded mandates.
We own the world’s reserve currency. Currently borrowing costs are near or below 0%. We are not “broke”. The US government is not a household.
Energy Dept
Homeland Security especially TSA
in their entirety. There are others but my kauphy hasn't completely kicked in yet.
No. I do not care who's private oxen will get gored in the process. For things like the FAA/FCC/NASA... Hand them over to private consortia like the IEEE.
Enough is enough.
How about we cut the O’Dumbies vacations and golf. No wait he will spend more if hes is still at the white house.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Don’t forget the EPA; rogue dept.
“We own the world’s reserve currency.”
But for how much longer?
“But for how much longer?”
For the foreseeable future. What’s going to replace it? The Euro? The Yuan? Doubtful.
When the american people get corrupt...
You end up with a political system EXACTLY like the one we have..
American people seem to getting MORE corrupt NOT LESS..
Expecting it to change is delusional..
The QUESTION: Just HOW delusional ARE YOU?..
** Note; If you expect change you are delusional its just a matter of how delusional.. you are.. not IF..
$1.2 trillion over 10 years is chump change and we all know it will never happen. You cannot constrain a future Congress. Most of it will never get cut. That being said I say let the sequester begin.
I’d start with hussein’s free spending.
Good point... Only 10% favor reduced spending on Education... when there hasn’t been a dollar spent on education since the Department of Education was created that wasn’t a complete waste and totally unproductive.
Pay no attention to ksen. He will put up arguments you can swat away all day, and never stop. He’s a time sink, and the House Socialist.
Until our soldiers can be fed 3 squares a day, congressional salaries should be reduced.
Many of the laws and regulations on the books are redundant, and expensive to enforce. Dump them. When people are in a position to develop business, and run their businesses as they see fit, money will be made that will benefit all.
When the average American can own firearms per Amendment 2, without the infringements on his GOD given RIGHTS, we won’t need as much law enforcement. Chances are, more lives will be saved as well. More saved lives means more tax payers.
The ineffective war on drugs would be a huge savings! Fewer black-0ps amd pay-offs needed.
REstore to the States that which belongs to the states in terms of responsibilities and freedoms. Like Education for example.
Now, just eliminating cabinet positions that don’t belong there will save money in wages, materials, and legislation enforcement.
If this country operated from a position of strength rather than being blackmailed, a ton of foreign aid spending would be released.
Dump the fed and put the money BACK into the United States Treasury. It saves interest...tons of interest. It will pissof a few people but will also empower the the “People”, once again. Money goes back into the pockets of the PEOPLE, where it belongs and eliminates a whole bunch of corruption. Banks don’t belong running countries.
Look at what’s been put into place over the past 50 years that’s cost this country a small fortune...and reverse it.
Expect it? Now way no how. Too many dollar lined pockets out there hanging on for dear life.
t need as much law enforcement. Chances are, more lives will be saved as well. More saved lives means more tax payers.
The ineffective war on drugs would be a huge savings! Fewer black-0ps amd pay-offs needed.
REstore to the States that which belongs to the states in terms of responsibilities and freedoms. Like Education for example.
Now, just eliminating cabinet positions that don
Politicians and their bloated salaries. I suggest that we set the politician's salry at the minimum wage and see how anxious they are to remain in office to "serve us".
Political "service" was NEVER intended to be a career choice, but people who can't get jobs saying "Welcome to Walmart" have turned it into one.
We are long overdue for a change in the way that politicians are paid and in the way that their offices and expenses are operated.
But, that's wishful thinking on my part. To make that happen, we, the people who own this government lock, stock and barrel would have to DO something!
And, we won't.
But where I feel that Pew is actually letting us down is the following. I'll bet that Pew didn't ask anybody they polled if they understood the Founding States division of federal and state government powers evidenced by the Constitution's Section 8 of Article I, Article V and the 10th Amendment.
And more importantly with respect to the constitutional statutes referenced above, I'll bet that Pew didn't ask anybody if they were familiar with Justice John Marshall's official clarification of Congress's limited power to lay taxes, taxes which Congress essentially cannot justify under Section 8.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
So it's not just a matter of spending cuts for a given issue, but the fact that Congress has no constitutonal authority to tax and spend for many issues in the first place.
For example, going down Pew's list of issues, although the Supreme Court has previously clarified that things like agriculture and healthcare are 10th Amendment protected state power issues, Pew and the people that they polled don't seem to understand that.
"State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress (emphases added)." --Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
"From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited. None to regulate agricultural production is given, and therefore legislation by Congress for that purpose is forbidden (emphasis added)." --United States v. Butler, 1936.
Again, Justice Marshall had clarified that Congress cannot tax and spend in the name of issues which the states have never delegated to Congress via the Constitution the specific power to address, health and agriculture being examples of such issues.
So the issue is not cutting federal spending for certain things in the name of fiscal prudence, but to eliminate federal spending for Section 8-unjustifiable issues, letting the states tax and spend for such things, depending on what a given's state's legal majority voters are willing to pay for.
In fact, the states can always exercise their unique, Article V power to ratify proposed amendments to the Constitution to do so to allow Congress to tax and spend for such things.
Also, since the Pew poll touched on foreign aid, note that Justice Joseph Story had noted that Congress cannot use the General Welfare Clause (1.8.1) as an excuse to justify foreign aid.
"If the tax be not proposed for the common defence, or general welfare, but for other objects, wholly extraneous, (as for instance, for propagating Mahometanism among the Turks, or giving aids and subsidies to a foreign nation, to build palaces for its kings, or erect monuments to its heroes,) it would be wholly indefensible upon constitutional principles (emphases added)." --Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 2 (1833).
Finally, the main reason that corrupt Congress has been spending way beyond its constitutional authority to do so for many decades is the following imo. Constitution-ignorant voters failed to recognize major constitutonal problems when Constitution-ignoring socialist FDR encouraged Congress to establish his "New Deal" programs without the consent of the Article V state majority, federal spending programs like SS based on wrongly usurped state powers.
Wealth cannot be printed, or wished into existence on a computer.
True, wealth can’t be printed, but cash to pay the government’s bills sure can be . . . and at rates where the government would effectively be getting paid to print money!! :thumbsup:
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