‘An Unsustainable Course’
Today, President Obama said:
Without significant change to steer away from ever-expanding deficits and debt, we are on an unsustainable course.
Some will dispute (with merit) my credentials as a fiscal conservative. But let there be no question that I have been fiscally concerned of late about the massive deficits (and corresponding increase in total debt) projected by Obama’s administration during Obama’s administration.
I understand that the trendline for the current budget year is, by and large, a result of (a) the mess President Obama inherited, and (b) the malaise he and others are trying to mitigate. But it’s the trendline in the outlying years that worries me. Accordingly, when Obama said what he said today — coupling those words with the announcement that he had named a “chief performance officer,” Jeffrey Zients, whose job will be to “streamline processes, cut costs and find best practices throughout the government” — I was encouraged.
Granted, all the streamlining and best-practice-finding in the world will not be enough to balance the budget. At some point, major junks of embedded spending will need to be painfully abolished, if we are serious about restoring fiscal sanity. But Obama’s move is at least a start, and it seems a far more productive start, an exponentially more engaged step than the snide scoffing of the “Tea Party” protesters who ignored or dismissed Andrew Sullivan’s challenge to identify what they would cut, if the scalpel were in their hands.
While we’re on the topic, here are a few suggestions, from across-the-aisle (on numbered pages 15-16, PDF pages 22-23) for CPO Zients to consider “streamlining” …
69 separate programs, administered by 10 different agencies, provide education or care to children under the age of 5
Nine separate agencies administer 44 different programs for job training
23 separate programs, each with its own overhead, provide housing assistance to the elderly
I don’t question the need for the intervention required in these areas. In fact, unlike other so-called conservatives, I’m inclined by experience to believe government can (and often must) play a role in helping children under five, boosting job training, housing the elderly, and so on. However, while I generally support such efforts, I think it’s equally legitimate to wonder if one program administered by one agency in each of those three areas would not be more efficient and effective.
I’d greatly appreciate it, if the new CPO would at least make the effort to prove me wrong.
25 Responses to “‘An Unsustainable Course’”
I agree with this.
But Obama’s move is at least a start, and it seems a far more productive start, an exponentially more engaged step than the snide scoffing of the “Tea Party” protesters who ignored or dismissed Andrew Sullivan’s challenge to identify what they would cut, if the scalpel were in their hands.
Seeing as how Obama is the most powerful man in the world, I would expect his actions to be considerably more productive and engaged than those of a bunch of protesters. I am a little underwhelmed at adding another bureaucracy to take care of the problem but I'm willing to give it a chance.
The continued calls for conservatives to spell out what they would cut are disingenuous. Obama is the one who repeatedly promised to go through the budget line-by-line, why not hold him to it? I have suggested cuts a few times, starting with the earmarks Obama promised to control, but the response from the left is always the same – 'we need that”, “it's not much money so cutting it would be a drop in the bucket”, “it will help stimulate the economy”, “it will help the local governments”, etc, etc.
The bottom line is that the left has no interest in controlling spending right now. They are living a fairy tale where there is enough money to pay for everything that's good. That's not the way the real world works though.
There is some encouragement here. However he has done nothing yet. I believe until I see proof otherwise this is nothing but more Obama double speak to assuage the angst of people like me who are not opposed to his budget as much as his budget fiscal irresponsibility.
In other words until he proves himself he is nothing but words and a suit. Bush said hed cut the budget deficit in half by so and so over and over and it did nothing but get bigger.
Action speaks louder then words. Hes just telling us what we want to hear so that we all like him.
Actions. My friend Obama. Actions. Then Ill campaign for you in 2012.
So again, “the right” as represented here, fails to rise to the challenge I made, echoed by Sullivan to tell us what exactly they'd cut. Come on, “conservatives”. Stop whining and offer some suggestions.
My challenge from a few days ago:
OK, federal budget axebearers. Here is the summary of the Obama budget, on ONE page (not 200 pp). http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/sum…
WHAT would you cut?
Note especially the % 08-09 increase/decrease vs Bush average increase/decrease. You have line item veto power. Tell me where you'd cut. I really want to know. Let's get specific.
The link is bad, GD.
GD, I already responded in another thread that:
a) a summary like that is so broad that there's no way anyone could make even half way intelligent judgments about whether the amounts spent are necessary or efficiently allocated.
b) Even if we as individuals had time to pour through longer documents with more detail, the numbers aren't necessarily reported in a way so that we can judge whether the spending increases are needed or if they'll be done wisely
c) As a result of those factors and many others, the best suggestion I can offer is that we should have an across the board cut and let the heads of each agency figure out where the waste is in their own budgets. No one's ox gets gored, and can anyone really say that they don't believe there's at least 5 or 10% waste of funds in all government bureaucracies?
In addition to that, I'd say that in the interest of transparency and reduction of the corrupting influence of money in politics (as well as the ridiculous incumbent advantage) that we ban all earmarks (if a project has merit, the onus should be on the legislator to support it in open debate) and that the budgets of each agency should be posted the same way charitable organizations show theirs- with a breakdown of administration costs as a percentage of revenue. Then we might have a chance of making educated pronouncements about what should be cut in the future, if certain agencies have high ratios that can't be justified based on the outcomes they are producing.
Thanks, dagoat. I fixed it.
CS, you are punting. There are 200 pages of backup and you're welcome to look for specifics there. Give me a “vague” idea then, of what you'd cut. By the way, in across the board cuts, the defense budget would suffer far more than social programs, many of which, if you look at the summary, are already cut BELOW what Bush actually did over the last 8 years.
But if you want to pursue that exercise, tell me what % you'd cut across the board and I will gladly point out what results that would have in your most and least favorite programs.
LOL about earmarks- ignore the reasons I've given for supporting a ban and condescend to agree…OK.
For arguments' sake let's say we do that and that's 1%, then we do another 3% across all agencies. I'm not sure why you then have to 'show' me how that affects defense or anything else- I'm capable of seeing what a 3% cut would mean.
It's exactly my point, CS. When you look at it, your proposal would cut hugely into priorities you think are important, and in what I do. But the impact of cutting education, transportation, commerce are tiny. Cutting defense is huge, but I don't really think you'd go along with that.
Honestly I think if these agencies were run efficiently then they could all afford cuts at that level (I did back down, I admit, to a 3% level- personally I wouldn't doubt that deeper cuts could still work but it would certainly be more difficult.) And yes, I include defense. Procurements are notoriously wasteful and rife with fraud and graft (though a lot of that seems to be in the earmarking side, with multiple offenders in Congress having relatives get defense contracts.)
I think if each agency were given that mandate, and the heads of the agencies asked to present a proposed budget at that level, they could do it if the will was there (the president would then have to review it and see if he agreed with where their proposed cuts were going to hit, of course.)
And a 3% cut overall, while it wouldn't obviously trim as much as 10%, would be better than a net increase in the total budget.
I will say this though- I agree completely when Obama makes the point that the discretionary spending isn't the biggest part of the problem, it's the entitlements.
Entitlements are a different issue. But if you want to cut retirement income or medical care for our elders, I'll let your party fight for that. Retired folks paid their entire working lives into these programs, and we have made a commitment to them. If you want to balk on that commitment, go ahead and try to win an election on that.
Nope, of course I don't want to do that- but would you oppose means testing, and raising the retirement age (gradually, and bracketed to allow earlier benefits for those in non-white collar jobs)? And changing the structure of future benefits so we're not reneging on the promises to the current generation that's due to receive them?
No one else? You guys have railed against big spending but don't have a single idea of where to cut? CS is the only one up to the challenge? Sad, solution-free naysayers.
OK. Here's mine. Cut out the middlemen on all legitimate affairs of the government. No more Blackwater – let our military be the guns, not mercenaries; no more Halliburton or Bechtel – let our military set up bases and provide food service as they used to. Hire locals to build bases and embassies (with appropriate supervision of course). Cut out the 15,000 disaster contractors and let FEMA do it. Cut all “star wars” science fiction missile shield BS – ICBMs are not the way wars are fought now. Ditto with F22 and other pricey high tech weapons that have never been used or useful in fighting today's wars. We don't need Lockheed to cut government checks. Cut all illegal wiretap activites and domestic surveillance unless there is proven “probable cause”. Cut all agricultural subsidies, but counter any foreign “dumping” on our markets with equal tariffs. If Japan subsidizes rice by 20%, add a 20% tariff. Level the playing field.
Bailouts. If a bank needs money, buy their stock. Ditto with auto companies, etc. No more handouts. The way companies raise capital in a capitalist system is by selling stock. That's the free-market way. If management is not on board with our priorities, fire them. If board members aren't, replace them.
CS thank you. I do not oppose means testing or gradual raising of the retirement age.
Never let it be said that I duck from a challenge, GD
I'm glad we found some common ground.
The problem I see with your 'cut the middleman' approach is that there'd then be nothing stopping the same waste and fraud from occurring in the bureaucracy. To some extent, the “15,000 contractors” should be a feature, not a bug. If the contracts aren't being awarded competitively, we need to find out why. The other examples you give are where the problem really is the LACK of competition (Blackwater and Lockheed.)
Well I've done this before but I'll jump in again.
I don't see why the earmarks are a red herring. They are mostly local projects and while undoubtedly there are a lot of good ideas, this isn't a good time to spend money we can't afford. Moreover the earmarks are an area Obama promised to reform, so they should be a prime target.
The 600+ billion set aside to reform the health care should not be budgeted until there is an actual plan to reform health care.
In the health care field, the money set aside for electronic medical records should not be budgeted until a low-cost system adequate for most physician's offices has been developed. There is a reason most small physician offices don't have electronic medical records, and it's not because doctors are dinosaurs.
The high-speed rail system announced yesterday is something that can easily wait. Is high-speed rail a good thing? Sure but we can't afford all good things we might want.
We should also expect Obama to do what he promised during his campaign and find areas to cut. It is inconsistent to imply there no areas that can be cut when Obama said repeatedly in his campaign that there are.
Thanks, DaGoat. Earmarks are high-profile small change, but I agree that Obama should denounce them. The Dem Congress reduced them by 25% compared to GOP Congress and the minority party has generally had about 40% of the total. The 11,000 are $15 billion or $1.4 million each. I agree special projects should be debated on their own merits, not shoehorned into bills in which they don't fit. Still, the total is only 2/3 of what we gave Chase.
I also agree about high speed rail. It's even smaller potatoes, but it adds up, so we can wait on that. Instead, if we're going to continue to use cars and planes, let's have serious fuel efficiency rules, and serious work toward biofueling our diesels, including locomotives and long distance trucks.
Health care is tricky, because it affects so much else; the cost to employers hurts their competitiveness; we all pay the cost of the uninsured who use the ER for primary care; our failure of preventive care costs far more in dramatic medical intervention, etc. The inefficiency of redundant recordkeeping seems a small part of a larger problem, so I'd agree to forgo that for now, except for minor development costs to come up with a plan, as you suggest.
You did respond to my previous challenge, but as I recall, only with criticisms of Obama's projections. There have been calls for “smaller government” and cuts in spending for decades. I would venture that 99% of “teabaggers” have no idea what they really mean to cut, or how it would impact the budget. I think we all need to get into the details and flesh out our visceral reactions with specific ideas.
Most economists agree that cutting government spending in a recession is a really bad idea, but let's think now about what we want cut and take a hard look at what budgetary results we could really expect from those cuts.
“I would venture that 99% of “teabaggers” have no idea what they really mean to cut, or how it would impact the budget. I think we all need to get into the details and flesh out our visceral reactions with specific ideas. “
I agree there should be some introspection about preferred policies, but isn't that a bit like saying that anti-war protestors should be able to articulate preferred foreign policy plans to be implemented to eliminate threats of war? Or military strategies to wind down a current engagement?
Sometimes isn't it enough to just say that what the government is currently doing is anathema to one's principles, or in the opinion of the protesters it's anathema to the founding principles of our country?
It's certainly helpful when people have alternative ideas for handling problems that have led to the status quo- but I don't at all accept the idea that having well formed ideas about alternatives is a prerequisite for seriousness of a protest movement. Among other reasons, is the fact that protests often involve disparate groups all united only by their opposition to the current policies. There may be one group who wants change in one direction, and another that wants change in another direction- but that only proves the point even more clearly that we need to consider change.
Now, political leaders do have a greater responsibility for articulating the direction of change that they seek. I've given the GOP a partial pass for now but they do need to be moving in the direction of coalescing around a set of principles for alternative policies.
I dunno, CS. Being “against taxes” is pretty weak tea, while being “against war” is a specific pacifist sentiment (not that I agree with it).
Plus, most anti-war protests are against a specific war, while anti-tax is foolish on its face. We need to fund the government somehow and not a one of us would want to be without any government services (roads, security, police, fire, air traffic control, mail, etc).
My point is that what riles up “the base” is largely emotional triggers rather than serious policy issues (like characterizing safety net programs as welfare cheats; taxes as “bridge to nowhere” pork, etc). I think we need to get away from that.
What I am getting back to is the idea of an informed electorate being essential to a successful democracy. Twisting the facts to get people to support your politics through ignorance is essentially bad for democracy.
GD, the general principle still applies, and it's mainly because of your insistence that the rallies are strictly 'anti-tax' that the analogy isn't making sense to you (which I admit is largely due to the decision made to use a tea party and tax day theme- but then again, consider that the first Tea Party wasn't about not wanting to pay any taxes at all or deluding people to think that there were no expenses involved in running a government.)
And to draw further analogy, where you say that it's foolish for people to protest what is in our opinion wasteful and irresponsible spending, that's the same rationale used to protest a specific war but not the idea of war for defense in general.
And firing up the base, like it or not, will always be a part of politics on both sides of the aisle. I thought it was bad for democracy when I saw all the interviews with Obama voters who didn't even know what his policy positions were, but I knew that that comes with the territory on both sides of the aisle. I have to assume that it largely cancels out, though I imagine you'll disagree and feel that it's done to a higher degree on one side. I can assure you that there are many folks on the right who feel equally concerned that the balance tilts the other way.
The most widescale use of that phenomenon on the left is in convincing people that the only argument needed to justify a policy shift is the need for change itself. There's rarely any informed discussion of what other options for other forms of change might exist, or how far the change should go in a particular issue- generally what happens is the political rhetoric fires people up for change and then they nod their heads in agreement with the proposed changes from Democrats- giving them the benefit of the doubt that they've weighed the costs and potential consequences of their policies.
good points, CS. The original Boston tea party was a protest against corporate corruption of government. The British royals were using the law to create a tax loophole to protect their own company, the British East India Company, from paying taxes on importing tea to the colonies, while American entrepreneurs would have to pay that, putting them at a competitive disadvantage. It is the East India Company's tea that went into Boston harbor–the first shipment after the loophole was created.
Let me remind you that TARP was enacted by the last President, not by Obama.
And yes, manipulation of stupid voters and “ditto heads” will always be with us. But Obama is extraordinarily gifted in media and communications. He may successfully sink the GOP by his reasoned appeals while the right flounders behind their shrill spokespersons, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Palin, Beck, etc.
Time will tell. So far so good.
Incidentally, you were one of only two here to rise to the challenge of looking at the budget for cuts. So far, I see no definition of what you or others here, let alone the raving teabaggers, consider “wasteful and irresponsible spending”. You can't cut what you can't identify.
Let me remind you that TARP was enacted by the last President, not by Obama.
No reminders needed. I expressed my opinion against it then, and I wish the GOP had organized against it. I don't think it's unreasonable though to realize that people's individual anger takes time to reach a certain threshhold, and then organizing such people takes time. Not to mention that events in the interim have taken the bad policy of TARP and made it exponentially worse.
And on the cuts, I'll reiterate that I believe there's across the board waste and fraud that needs to be cut. It's not my responsibility to tell the managers of our money where the waste is- it's their burden of proof that they're spending wisely and in the interest of the people, not their own reelection campaigns.
I guess Obama heard you CS. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar…