The Stimulus Failed, Now Try Spending Cuts

Since the economic downturn, the focus of all politicians has been the loss of jobs in the economy and the need to bring down the unemployment rate.  Supporters of the 2009 Stimulus Bill claimed that the legislation would reduce unemployment and get the country back on the right fiscal track.  Unemployment spiked after the legislation was passed and after about 2 months of decreasing unemployment, the May 2011 unemployment numbers, which were released on June 3, 2011, showed some bad news with unemployment creeping back up to 9.1 percent.

Seeing the continued failure of the stimulus bill, House Freshmen want spending cuts to get the economy back on track.  According to a June 6, 2011 article in The Hill “Democrats argue the stimulus passed in 2009 was too small and that unemployment would have risen to 11 percent without it.  But the new GOP House members said Democrats who are demanding another round of stimulus are delusional and that only fiscal restraint and curtailing burdensome regulations will fix the country’s economic mess.“

Even though some members of Congress don’t seem to know where to look for spending cuts, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance does.  Let’s start with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) which detailed a number of spending cuts in its March 2011 report, “Reducing the Deficit: Spending and Revenue Options. “

The cuts are broken up into three categories:

• Mandatory – savings would total $29 billion in one year and $590 billion over five years;
• Discretionary (Defense) – savings would total $10 billion in one year and $178 billion over five years; and
• Discretionary (All Discretionary Activities Other Than Defense) – savings would total $13 billion in one year and $147 billion over five year.

All told these savings would be more than $900 billion over five years which include:

• Consolidate the Department of Defense’s Retail Activities and Provide a Grocery Allowance to members which could save $2.2 billion over five years.
• Replace the Joint Strike Fighter Program with F-16s and F/A-18s which could save $27 billion over five years.
• Eliminate the Department of Energy’s Grants to States for Energy Conservation and Weatherization which would save $907 million over five years.
• Eliminate Intercity Rail Subsidies which would save more than $10 billion over five years.

As you can see, there are many places the government can and needs to cut spending.  There are those in the House of Representatives that recognize this, but sadly, there are plenty of others that still believe throwing money into the black-hole that is the federal government will fix everything.