By Mona Charen
Friday, March 01, 2013
Responding to the Obama administration's operatic
warnings of catastrophe for Meals on Wheels for the elderly, Head Start, meat
inspections, air traffic controllers, and police, fire, and 911 operators if
the government reduces the rate of increase of federal spending by 2 percent,
radio host Chris Plante offered the following suggestion: "Since this two
percent obviously covers all essential government spending, let's cut the other
98 percent!"
Even if these "draconian cuts" are implemented,
the federal government will spend more this year than it did last year.
Another way to think about it is this: In 2007, the
government was 40 percent smaller than it is today. Were poor people sleeping
under bridges? Were the elderly starving? Were planes grounded? Was food unsafe
to eat?
Here's another question: Are Americans really this
gullible? The president's doom saying is so absurd that a mature country would
hoot him off the stage. As it is, the housebroken media credulously report his
obviously partisan scare mongering as fact.
As the sequester has loomed, the president and even many
Republicans have argued that these "across the board" spending cuts
(they're actually just reductions in the rate of increase) are
"stupid" and "destructive" and so forth. This raises (it
doesn't beg) the question: if cutting spending across the board is so stupid,
what does that say about the priorities of the congress and president who
passed these spending bills in the first place? If our spending priorities are
so out of whack that cutting everything equally is unthinkable, why hasn't the
government adjusted those programs before now?
Isn't it the job of elected representatives to pass laws,
oversee their execution and adjust accordingly? There is a rumor that the U.S.
has two Houses of Congress, but the Senate hasn't been heard from in years.
While the Republican House has passed budgets that would slowly reduce the
levels of federal debt over 10 years, the Democratically-controlled Senate has
played see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, but alas not speak-no-evil. In any case, that
body has not passed a budget in nearly four years.
Democrats like to pretend that every last penny of
government spending is wise, benevolent and essential. My guess is that perhaps
15 percent of discretionary spending meets all three of those criteria, but
we'll never know because government programs are rarely evaluated for
effectiveness, efficiency or necessity. According to the Government
Accountability Office, the government runs 50 different programs for the
homeless across eight agencies, 23 programs for housing aid in four agencies,
26 programs for food and nutrition aid among six agencies, 27 programs on teen
pregnancy, 130 programs for at-risk youth, 10 agencies to promote exports and
342 programs for economic development. The federal government runs 47 different
job-training programs at a cost to the taxpayer of $18 billion annually. The
GAO found that "Only 5 of the 47 programs ... examined had done detailed
impact studies" and that among those "the effects of participation
were not consistent across programs, with only some demonstrating positive
impacts that tended to be small, inconclusive, or restricted to short-term
impacts."
Entitlements eat up two-thirds of federal spending and
are excluded from sequestration, which is too bad because an estimated $20
billion is wasted on Medicare fraud every year. As for Medicaid, a New York
Times investigation found that between 10 and 40 percent of New York's spending
was lost to fraud and theft yearly. Other estimates suggest that 33 percent of
Earned Income Tax Credits (about $9 billion annually) are erroneous or
fraudulent.
Sure, the government performs some necessary functions,
but it is also vulnerable to abuse because nobody is watching. Consider the
example of Al Gore. Upon leaving the vice presidency, Mr. Gore's net worth was
estimated at $2 million. But with the advent of Mr. Obama's
"investments" in green energy, Mr. Gore has profited handsomely. His
company, General Investment Management, invested in a number of companies that
received "green" subsidies. Gore's net worth (before the sale of
Current TV to Al Jazeera) was estimated by the Washington Post to be $100
million. The Obama economy has been awful for average Americans but exceedingly
profitable for the well connected.
Some government spending is necessary, much is sinfully
wasteful, and the remainder is corrupt. If Americans have stopped believing
that then a key aspect of the American character is dead.
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