U.S. Federal Budget - Part III, Continuing Resolution

Well the Continuing Resolution(CR) passed with a big $38.5 Billion Dollars in cuts – a far cry from the original $100 Billion or even the $61 Billion they told us just last week.  As everyone has said before, these relatively small cuts amount to something just over 1% of the federal budget and in fact by the time they settled on this tiny sum they had spent nearly another $40 Billion.  This is no victory for conservatives or those who want to lower our deficit and cut government spending as the Federal government will still borrow another ONE TRILLION DOLLARS ($1,000,000,000.00) over the next SIX MONTHS.  Yes, let’s repeat that and when you read it again please think about it, the President will borrow ONE TRILLION DOLLARS during the next six months before the 2012 budget kicks in. 

Unfortunately, our President and many of our politicians believe that government spending spurs economic prosperity but they have flushed One Trillion Dollars of borrowed money through the system and nothing has happened.  They believe they can solve our problem of borrowing and spending with more borrowing and spending.  Judge Andrew Napalitano asks a very good question, “…if we do not have the money or the means to pay back so much as a dollar of the $14.3 Trillion we owe, how can we morally borrow another Trillion Dollars?”  Our politicians do not have the morals, integrity, and certainly not the honor that our founding fathers had and expected of themselves and their heirs to maintain this constitutional representative republic as our form of government. 

The Tea Party made a good point, “Congress would not have cut even one penny of the $3.834 Trillion Dollar budget had it not been for your efforts in the past two years.  Instead they would have spent even more money.”  We all need to remember that in the past those who have been listened to the most in Washington have been the loudest; the far leftist liberals, the socialists, communists, the environmental lobby and the rest of the loony left, its about time that real Americans that love their country and the principals, values and faith it was founded on are heard. 

However, all the Democrats in Congress and even our President are all behind this CR and its $38.5 Billion in cuts, huh?  Oh yes.  They are saying things like, “look how fiscally responsible we are” – “the biggest budget cut in history” – “we are on our way to cutting the deficit” – etc., etc., etc.   What happened to the death and destruction if “we cut one penny from the budget?”  And if it’s so good, why didn’t they propose even some minimum amount of cuts in their original budget?  Why were there zero cuts in their budget?  Well, I guess us dumb citizens should just be happy with the cuts.  Really?

Now for the real good news.  They scammed us.  Yes, you read it right, they scammed and lied to us.  The $38.5 Billion in cuts wasn’t really cuts from the budget but rather just them agreeing to not spend some money that was already allocated from previous budgets.  They pruned money left over from previous years, using accounting sleight of hand and going after programs President Obama had targeted to cut anyway.  They cut from earmarks, unspent census money, leftover federal construction funding, and $2.5 Billion from the most recent renewal of highway programs that can’t be spent because of restrictions set by other legislation.  Another $3.5 Billion comes from unused spending authority from a program providing health care to children of lower-income families.

About $10 Billion of the cuts comes from targeting appropriations accounts previously used by lawmakers for so-called earmarks, those pet projects that Republicans had already engineered a ban on when they took back the House earlier this year.  The only real cuts that were agreed to in this CR amount to about $2 Billion Dollars.  Thanks.

There were some who saw through this scam by leadership like Mike Pence (R-IN) who said “he probably won’t vote for the measure.”  Michele Bachman (R-MN) flatly stated she is a “nay” on the bill.  Representative Huelskamp (R-KY) posted that it “barely makes a dent” in the debt.

They just can’t get it right.  They just can’t stop borrowing and spending.  It will crush our financial system if it continues, there is no way around it.  Even the IMF (International Monetary Fund) sees we are in trouble.  They state, “…the U.S. government will have to borrow an amount of money equivalent to 29% of their GDP this year alone in order to finance its budget deficit and its maturing debt.”  They go on to say in their most recent World Economic Outlook that "the U.S. government not only lacks a credible strategy for dealing with its skyrocketing debt, but is continuing to expand deficit spending at a time when it should be contracting."
This is a crisis that neither party seems to get it nor take it seriously.  Republicans are proposing tax cuts without explaining how it is paid for and Democrats don’t seem to want to cut anything and most think that government debt is not a crisis at all.  Even though government projections tell them and us that by 2021 our debt interest payments alone will amount to more then $1.1 Trillion Dollars a year. 

They watch as our financial system, our country, our future and that of our children’s and grand children’s and possibly forever, falls down around us – no country that has lost liberty has ever got it back in that generations lifetime – depending on your age that means you and your children at the least and more then likely your grand children and their children at best.  Now, do you want the Debt Ceiling raised again so they can spend and borrow more?  That’s the next big thing coming.  In May you are going to be told that “you can’t play with the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government, we have to raise the debt ceiling,” baloney.  Don’t believe it.  We have to start the painful cuts now or there won’t be an America for any generation at any time in the future.

UPDATE:  After all the games and back room deals the actual money cut from the budget is $352 Million - that's it!   Have you had enough of politics as usual in Washington?