federal spending
My column from today's Roll Call is the ultimate contrarian argument: I say we'll end the year realizing that federal spending is VERY popular.
Popularity of Federal Spending Will Be Realized in 2011
By Stan Collender
Roll Call Contributing Writer
Jan. 4, 2011, 11:12 a.m.
For years polls have consistently shown that more than a majority of Americans say that no area of federal spending should be cut, with the exception of foreign aid.
Prediction: No matter what the incoming GOP majority has said and wants us to believe, the number and dollar value of earmarks in the next Congress will be at least as great, and probably more, than the amount from previous years.
In fact, when you combine the following two items together, and it's hard not to realize that the only thing the announced GOP ban on earmarks is only going to accomplish is to drive them underground where they'll be harder to see...and even that's not certain.
First, Hal Rogers (R-KY), whose nickname on Capital Hill is "Prince of Pork," will be the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee in the next Congress and, therefore, the new "Earmarker-in-Chief." As Politico reports,
"Over the past two years, Rogers has requested $175,613,300 in earmarks, including funding for a cheetah protection nonprofit that his daughter works for.
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By now much virtual ink has been devoted to the “cuts” that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates proposes in the defense budget and defense programs. These have been treated as a clear statement of intention that DOD will contribute to the overall effort at restraining federal spending, the deficit, and the growing national debt.
In reality, the Gates strategy does not make any contribution to restraining federal spending or reducing the deficit. And in trying to avoid cutting his budget, he is putting the Pentagon behind the curve in the growing effort to discipline the federal budget and on a collision course with other parts of federal spending and revenues.
I used my first column for The Fiscal Times to take on all those who insist that the only way to deal with the federal deficit is by cutting spending. Contrary to those who repeat the "it's a spending problem" mantra, spending definitely is not the only issue and spending cuts are not the only possible response.
In my Roll Call column this week, I take another shot at the Gallup poll on waste from about 10 days ago and on Steve Moore's characterization of that poll. Thanks. for listening. I feel much better now.
Waste Not, Want Not — but First Define Waste and Want
Sept. 29, 2009
Gallup released a poll two weeks ago that unwittingly but perfectly explains the ever-intractable politics of the federal budget. The poll, which was released Sept. 15, found that the average American believes that 50 cents of every tax dollar collected by the federal government is wasted.
