The Start Of Real Spending Cuts?

I’ve been harping to my Leftie congresswoman (then she died, now I have a new Leftie congresswoman) and Leftie Senators about the exorbitant costs added to everything Davis-Bacon touches.
Maybe soon it will be gone.

I note that some of these savings are one-time, others are annual.

Since one of the World Wars we have been subsidizing mohair, grown from goats for US military uniforms.
But we stopped using mohair in military uniforms YEARS ago!
That subsidy might seem small – but it has got to stop!
And let it be a lesson to any other useless old hanger-on costs weighing down the federal budget.

People on the Left have already been detracting from this group of recommendations, saying, why not cut it all NOW?
Why wait 10 years?
Well, I came across this:
The recommendations would extend President Obama’s pay freeze on federal employees from two years to five.
It would cut the civil service by 15 percent through attrition over a decade.
And it would prohibit federal workers from serving as union officials on government time.

My understanding is that Obama is trying to rush his personal study of every regulation to see where HE could make cuts.

Now, I wonder if he will sign the cuts that make it all the way to his desk from these recommendations?

has anyone figured out how many jobs will be lost?

I was comparing Obama’s op ed
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703396604576088272112103698.html
about his order to look at regulations with an eye to cutting red tape and comparing it with Robert Gibbs response to the question from Ben Fuller
http://www.enewspf.com/latest-news/latest-national/21145-white-house-press-briefing-by-robert-gibbs-january-18-2011.html
about what Obama might cut.
LOL!
Obama thinks his last two years have been part of the solution, not the cause of the problem!
Amazing!

And, BTW, Greg, as a printer’s wife, we have noticed the incredible excesses in gov’t printing for decades.

Did you know how many copies of EVERYTHING are simply assumed to be needed?
WAY TOO MANY!!!

And did you know that every person in the USA can request a free copy of everything the gov’t prints?
One free copy of all of it!
EACH.
WAY TOO MUCH!

The computer can now replace so much of that.
And if you are concerned about the print size just click control and the plus symbol together.
The page gets bigger and bigger until it is huge.
Control and the minus sign brings it back down in size.

Planned Parenthood-the slaughter house, EPA, DOE need to be slashed to, I was appalled that 400+ million dollars of taxpayers money help killing children.
I hope that they continue to look at more slashing of funds, since EPA is one of the bigger fish to stop employment, and it’s idiotic regs.

I think the federal government should eliminate all grants that benefit any industry or particular portion of the population. In the vast majority of cases, I think states are far better suited to fund and oversee such activities, and taking grants out of the hands of federal policy makers removes some of the influence peddling. Grants have become a large part of the “bacon” that politicians have been able to use as currency for purchasing votes. At least on the state level, the scope of damage and political manipulation can be watched a bit more closely by the people who provide the funding. In fact, I’d like to see grants come out of a pool voluntarily funded by tax-payers or private institutions. The smaller the pool, the less the tendency to grant funds in a willy-nilly fashion (or so it seems to me.)

As for Obama’s regulatory article in the WSJ (see the link in comment 10 above,) I sense nothing other than the usual campaign rhetoric. I distrust talk of “balance” from anyone whose actions speak otherwise.

Jeff

If dems actually cared about children Greg, they wouldn’t be so pro abortion or all for spending them into mountains of debt even before they are born. They also wouldn’t be sexualizing them at earlier and earlier ages and would actually give them good educations rather than indoctrinate them. Save your phony concern for people that buy your B.S.

@Aye, #17:

Obviously we disagree on the point. I place it under “to provide for the general welfare”.

I hope the $2,500,000,000 reductions go through, but I will wait until after the ones who donate to the politicians tell the politicians how much they won’t be getting if the politicians go along with it. A lot of people and businesses won’t be getting money they are used to getting. This means less money donated to the politicians who vote for the reductions. I will have to see it before I believe it.

Hey Greg, considering YOU made the assertion that it is part of the enumerated powers, why don’t YOU prove it instead of asking Aye to disprove it?

@Mr. Irons, #23: “Greg, did you even read this bit of Mr. Hamilton you linked?”

I read everything that I linked. To my thinking, Hamilton clearly rejects the idea that the powers of Congress were restricted to those specifically enumerated:

“The terms “general Welfare” were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed or imported in those which Preceded; otherwise numerous exigencies incident to the affairs of a Nation would have been left without a provision. The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used; because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union, to appropriate its revenues shou’d have been restricted within narrower limits than the “General Welfare” and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification nor of definition.”

The Supreme Court affirmed Hamilton’s interpretation in 1936, with the decision on United States v. Butler. There are some comments about that here.

The argument for the constitutionality of progressive social programs rests on more than a simple expansion of the definition of the word “welfare” to include the word’s present-day connotations. Where the word occurs in the Constitution I take its meaning in the same simple, straightforward sense that founders would have: “A condition of being or doing well” .

@Mr. Irons, #25:

Court cases such as United States Vs Butler happened during economicaly harsh and enviromentaly harsher times for Farmers during the 1930′s. Gods know why you’d try to bring up a court case that struck down an Act intended to bring in taxation for the Welfare of the United States.

I suppose because Justice Robert’s comments on behalf of the Court in The United States v. Butler nailed down an interpretation of Section 8, Clause 1 that has stood ever since. The relevant part can be found here, in the 4th paragraph in the Scope of the Power section. Justice Roberts:

“While, therefore, the power to tax is not unlimited, its confines are set in the clause which confers it, and not in those of Sec. 8 which bestow and define the legislative powers of the Congress. It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution.”

In other words, the power of Congress to tax and spend goes beyond those things specifically itemized after the opening clause of Section 8. The opening clause itself confers power to tax and spend for the general welfare of the United States.