..THE current house leadership (Boehner, Hastert, Frist) are a joke.
aNONOMISLY
THE problem as I see it is that you can’t really expect Congress to tackle the big fish (entitlement spending) when it can’t even tackle the small one (pork spending). In fact, the rate of growth of both pork spending and entittlement spending have been accelarating under the Bush administration.
That been said, I give my vote of confidence to the current Treasury Secratery, ..mainly because is well qualified and also very much liked by Chuck Schumer (he said Paulson was the best possible pick for the position) and his ddm.
But Bush couldn’t do it when he had all that political ‘capital’ he has now lost.
We have seen drastic change in the wrong direction in the last six years, under Bush. I doubt he will be able to accomplish anything more substantive than lip service.
The problem with going after pork is that there isn’t even a clean argument of how much of it is poorly spent compared to any other form of government spending.
The amount and rate of growth—both astronomically small compared to entitlement spending—makes it clear it’s just a political gimmick, which frankly drains attention and energy away from the gigantic problem that is entitlement spending.
Going after pork spending is like treating for acne when a person has a life-threatening illness.
WOOF
It’s all pork.
Who sits at the dinner table is what matters.
http://neoconcommandcenter.blogspot.com/ Brooke
Like the tax code, the details of the spending are SO convoluted that the average American has little hope of untangling it.
Like metastasizing malignant melanoma, for instance?
http://sayanythingblog.com robport
The Republicans lack the backbone to go after entitlement spending, no doubt about it. And most seem too beholden to lobbyists to do much about pork. But I’m not sure that I blame all of the entitlement spending on the Republicans.
The problem, I think, is with we citizens ourselves. See, Americans are only favor of cutting government spending and waste when we talk about it in broad terms. Ask your average citizen what he/she thinks about government spending and the vast majority will say that we’re spending too much.
Start asking them about spending on specific programs, though, and you’ll get different answers. Mostly because of one of two reasons:
a) They benefit from the spending you’re talking about cutting.
b) They’re susceptible to arguments like “cutting social security spending will have old people eating dog food.”
If Republicans knew they had the will of the electorate behind them I think they’d make more progress on spending cuts. But I don’t think the Republicans are sure of any such thing, nor am I certain that the will to make significant cuts in federal spending exists among the people.
Much like terrorism, it may take a major catastrophe to get Americans interested in doing something about it.
Blog Advice and Support Installs and Upgrades Theme Modifications Custom Plugins Theme Design Conversions and Relocations Hacked Site Recovery Mobile Apps Development
