mail@davemoral.es

With much fanfare the Republican Study Group rolled out their proposals for cuts to Federal spending. No, they did not address the underlying structural challenges that underpin our current crisis. No mention was made of critical entitlement reform or our ballooning defense budgets. No comments were offered concerning the hundreds of billions we spend in defense supplementals to support two, expensive, unfunded wars. Conflicts that are currently draining 2% of our Gross Domestic Product.

No, instead the list offered up included cuts that you might, at first glance, confuse for the Republican Congress, circa 1995. All the old enemies are there, the arts, environmental protection and foreign aid.

Some highlights:

• Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy. $445 million annual savings.
• National Endowment for the Arts. $167.5 million annual savings.
• National Endowment for the Humanities. $167.5 million annual savings.
• Amtrak Subsidies. $1.565 billion annual savings.
• U.S. Agency for International Development. $1.39 billion annual savings.

Absent from the list? Any mention of defense cuts. Not a single penny line itemed on the list.

So, in the GOP’s world we devastate the arts, the humanities, public transportation that millions depend upon and we gut efforts around the world to build schools and provide clean water. Never mind the fact that great nations cease to be great nations when you jettison artistic endeavors. Disregard the fact that a few tens of millions of dollars in development funding in the early 1990′s might have averted the rise of the Taliban to power. No, lets set aside logic in spending money around the world to build schools and win hearts and minds. Far better to bomb the hell out of them and have our boys die by roadside bombs. After all, it’s American jobs on those Raytheon assembly lines building Tomahawk cruise missiles that will blow up the schools anyways. Why work for people and stability when you can have an endless cycle of war.

The lack of maturity when dealing with a $14 trillion Dollar debt and deficits is mind blowing. Pot shots at small, impactful programs don’t get you there friends.

I’m hopping mad.