national politics & policies too much government

Four Percent Off the Top

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Suppose you get a 4 percent pay cut.

Suppose you can’t borrow; you can only reduce your spending. Your household budget includes rent, videos, food, saving for a rainy day, and a front-door lock to replace the one destroyed when your home was broken into yesterday. What’s the first thing that pops into your head?

“Well! Better forget that lock!”? No.

Now suppose you head the executive branch of the federal government and want to entrench disastrously high spending. So you want to “prove” that even trivial budget cuts must produce blatant, instant pain. Then, for example, school kids en route to DC find that White House tours have been canceled. Then, for another example, airline passengers find that security delays at the airport drag on longer than ever.

Congress has tasked the Federal Aviation Administration with safely and efficiently directing airplanes on and off the tarmac. The sequester reduces the FAA’s budget by some 4 percent. What to do? What else but furlough controllers for one working day out of ten, inflicting delays in an estimated four of ten flights?

That’s what the Obama administration has done, even though many less destructive budgetary changes are not only possible, but far more preferable.

Much more than 4 percent must be cut from government spending. It won’t be painless. But the Obama administration, consulting a very old, very nasty “insider’s” playbook, seeks to “prove” that the only feasible way to even begin to reform is the least sensible way. False.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags FAA, furlough, Obama, sequester

9 replies on “Four Percent Off the Top”

The Power Lust is (still) a noxious weed that flourishes only in the vacant lots of (vapidly evil) empty minds!

Surely there is a way to replace all of the “Democrats” in office with Republicans?

The “Democrats” in the RINO suits in offices on ‘our’ side of the nation’s aisles, that is. Joe Scarborough.

Our government “servants” don’t care for serving us, and prefer to give us the shaft.

What Obama, Big Sis, and others working for Obama are essentially telling us, that since you cut our budget, we’re going to cut our budget to serve you, and we won’t cut the fat which we like. They are saying it’s not our decision where our money is spent, it’s their decision.

This fits right in with Obama’s idea of worker’s rights. It’s the right of the worker to screw the owner who pays their salaries, and the owner can’t do anything about it.

The owners can vote out the thieves, and hopefully they will.

Despite the “sky will fall” /”end of the world” eighty-five billion dollar sequester, the federal government has already spent 30 billion dollars more during the first five months of this fiscal year than it did in the same period last year.

And our erstwhile ketchup prince gave EGYPT–WHICH HAS A GOVERNMENT THAT HATES US, another $150 or was it another $250 MILLION DOLLARS, BESIDES THE JETS AND TANKS.

Cut the aid to our enemies- including Pakistan; Egypt; Turkey and the other Muslim ( and other ) nations that hate us. Cut CONGRESSIONAL AND PRESIDENTIAL PERKS AND PENSIONS.

The LEAST WEALTHY SENATOR (last forms reported) showed a NET WORTH OF ONLY $6.2 MILLION, POOR BABY.

Paul Ryan produced a budget showing cuts- that would not effect 99% or so of the people–totally ignored by our elites

While “proving” how painful a 4% cut is, they conveniently ignore the 4% or greater automatic cost increase that they are intending to dump onto the internet sales industry. Which will do most of the damage to the small startups and those that are struggling to compete and survive. It will end up cleaning out the competition for the big guys like Amazon and Google, more than making up for THEIR increased cost. And, of course, it hurts the American consumer.

My village school board would respond to a proposed budget cut by eliminating high school sports, cheerleading, and band. They hoped the outrage would result in restoring the original, too high, budget. Thankfully, the villagers resisted and rejected three proposed budgets. The board got the message and made sensible cuts. Too bad the federal government never received the same resistance from voters.

[…] for a 4 percent rebate in a FAA budget. Obama had, in effect, motionless to take 4 percent off a top. Well, with lightning speed and abounding comity, Congress practiced a impact on atmosphere trade […]

Off the top of my head I can come up with many cuts that will not effect the citizens of the U.S. negatively. #1 Stop sending $$s to countries that hate us & are not our allies. #2 Stop funding projects like the study of goldfish eyes or the mating habits of the minnow. #3 Eliminate duplicate gov’t departments. #4 Stop paying Congress’ salaries in perpetuity. I could continue, but I think my point has been made. & this is NOT a Republican vs Democrat thing. BOTH sides are big spenders. This is an entrenchment of power with career politicos. Time for this term limits to become a national referendum & not something Congress can keep voting down. Needs to be on the ballot.