The GOP "YouCut" Spending Cut Scam
Earlier this month I wrote about the problem with spending cuts: the government programs that actually spend stuff are very popular, and the programs that are most popular to cut don't spend much money in the first place.
Rep Eric Cantor (R-VA) apparently doesn't read my blog because he's proudly trumpeting YouCut, a revolutionary new GOP program where you can vote on what wasteful government programs ought to get cut. Your choices are the Presidential Election Fund (that both candidates refused last year), "taxpayer subsidized union activities" which seems pretty vague, the HUD Program for Doctoral Dissertations listed at $1m but I calculate at $250k, the "New Non-Reformed Welfare Program" which I'm pretty sure isn't actually the name of a program, and eliminating wealthier communities from community development block grants.
For the moment let's ignore the part where they're only giving us a choice between the programs they want to cut, presenting these five options rather than the entirety of government spending. Let's not even dive into whether these programs actually exist, whether the numbers accurately reflect their expenses, and whether the people voting on YouCut have heard of any of them before. Taking the GOP at their word, the total expense of all six programs together is $5.95 billion. That's 0.15% of the $3.834 trillion that the Federal government will spend in 2010, or 0.4% of the 2010 deficit, or 1/7th of one stealth bomber, or slightly less than three weeks of the Iraq War. If we go above and beyond picking the best cut and vote "all of the above" straight down the line it'll still make very close to zero difference.
"YouCut" is truly first-rate, genius-level bullcrap because it covers several bullcrap bases at once. It presents a false choice, offering voters only choices that the GOP will be happy with. It presents this choice as equal parts pandering and voter empowerment. "The fat cats in Washington can't figure out how to cut the deficit but maybe you can, you smart voters you!" And of course it allows the GOP to present themselves as being serious about expense-cutting and fiscal responsibiity while the plan itself is evidence that they either don't understand the problem or aren't serious about solving it.
Rep Eric Cantor (R-VA) apparently doesn't read my blog because he's proudly trumpeting YouCut, a revolutionary new GOP program where you can vote on what wasteful government programs ought to get cut. Your choices are the Presidential Election Fund (that both candidates refused last year), "taxpayer subsidized union activities" which seems pretty vague, the HUD Program for Doctoral Dissertations listed at $1m but I calculate at $250k, the "New Non-Reformed Welfare Program" which I'm pretty sure isn't actually the name of a program, and eliminating wealthier communities from community development block grants.
For the moment let's ignore the part where they're only giving us a choice between the programs they want to cut, presenting these five options rather than the entirety of government spending. Let's not even dive into whether these programs actually exist, whether the numbers accurately reflect their expenses, and whether the people voting on YouCut have heard of any of them before. Taking the GOP at their word, the total expense of all six programs together is $5.95 billion. That's 0.15% of the $3.834 trillion that the Federal government will spend in 2010, or 0.4% of the 2010 deficit, or 1/7th of one stealth bomber, or slightly less than three weeks of the Iraq War. If we go above and beyond picking the best cut and vote "all of the above" straight down the line it'll still make very close to zero difference.
"YouCut" is truly first-rate, genius-level bullcrap because it covers several bullcrap bases at once. It presents a false choice, offering voters only choices that the GOP will be happy with. It presents this choice as equal parts pandering and voter empowerment. "The fat cats in Washington can't figure out how to cut the deficit but maybe you can, you smart voters you!" And of course it allows the GOP to present themselves as being serious about expense-cutting and fiscal responsibiity while the plan itself is evidence that they either don't understand the problem or aren't serious about solving it.