What Passes for a “Bold” Budget Plan
Posted by Anthony Gregory on April 5, 2011
Congressman Paul Ryan’s proposal to reconfigure Medicaid and Medicare, and scrap Obamacare completely, isn’t a bad start. That last part—completely overturning the federal government’s last considerable expansion into the economy—is particularly worth cheering on.
And yet, why is it considered such a “bold” plan, in terms of the budget? ABC News reports that it “cuts the budget deficit by roughly $5 trillion over the next 10 years—a staggering figure compared to the $1 trillion in cuts in President Obama’s budget proposal.”
Ho, hum. This is not nearly as dramatic as it sounds. The current deficit is $1.34 trillion. $5 trillion over ten years is $500 billion a year—a little over one third of the deficit. Why is it “bold” for the government only to spend about $800 billion per year more than it takes in?
It’s hard to me to get excited about any budget plan that doesn’t eliminate the entire deficit right away.
Yes, of course I’m serious.
Remember back when conservatives used to talk about paying down the debt, not just balancing the budget? I guess that was during the Clinton years—and it does seem odd that Republicans only care about deficit spending when a Democrat is in the White House. Nevertheless, throughout the 1990s, the conservative approach was to say the federal deficit must be eliminated entirely. The budget should be paid down year by year through surpluses. A more libertarian option would be to default on the debt, but at least the idea of fiscal discipline was alive and well on the right back then.
Not any more. Let’s get real. Cutting $500 billion a year is an OK start, as compared to nothing. It’s certainly better than what most Republicans advocate, and so I imagine it has no chance of passing. But if you’re going to propose a budget plan that all Democrats and most Republicans will squeamishly retreat from, I suggest something a little more courageous.
The Independent Institute (full disclosure: I work there) has a plan to cut the budget by 2/3 right away. The plan entails reducing Social Security and Medicare, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, abolishing HUD, farm subsidies, and the Departments of Energy, Education, and Commerce, and many other agencies.
Now this seems a bit radical, although, to be honest, I’d go further. Federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI are unconstitutional. Same with the ATF, which even Reagan used to talk about abolishing. Of course, the DEA has to go.
I thought we were a nation of laws! Anything not specifically authorized by the U.S. Constitution should be off the table. This includes a standing army, which the Founding Fathers correctly identified as a great threat to liberty. We should return to a militia system and save almost trillion a year.
How many employees should the federal government have? Well, there’s the president, his cabinet, Congress, and the federal judiciary (which itself should be greatly reduced—nothing in the Constitution demands that there be more than a Supreme Court. The other judicial functions can be handled more locally). Of course, there is a legitimate authority for a small bureaucracy. How many is the right number? A little over a thousand work for Pixar, and I don’t know that the federal government has done anything as impressive as Up or Finding Nemo, at least as long as I’ve been alive. But surely government is less efficient and so let’s be charitable and more than triple that number. A federal government with four thousand employees, each working for—let’s be nice—$100,000 a year should cost, let’s say, $600 million in salary plus benefits.
The White House needs to be maintained, of course. Someone needs to open and close the doors for tours to the public. Everything else in DC can easily be privatized. Everything run by government that absolutely can’t be trusted with the market (although it’s hard to think of any such thing) can be handed over to the states, but without Washington acting even as a middle man.
But surely, government sometimes needs to spend beyond the bare minimum. Well, perhaps my plan for a federal government operating on a couple billion dollars is completely unrealistic. Fair enough. Let’s multiply my budget proposal by a hundred and then some—a federal government with a $300 billion budget would cause enough trouble for everyone, I would think. We could even have a military that would be plenty big enough to defend the country from any actual threats. This seemingly tiny government would still cost a thousand dollars per American every year. I pay about a tenth that much to AAA, and they’ll come and rescue me on the side of the road. Have you ever broken down and tried to get help from a federal vehicle?
Anyway, there’s my very moderate proposal: Cut government down to $300 billion a year. Remember, I’ve already compromised on my budget by a factor of more than a hundred. Is my plan still too unrealistic? If you say so. How about we take Paul Ryan’s plan or even Obama’s, then look at mine, and meet in the middle? Talk about a compromise: The government will still be bigger than it was for most of my lifetime, but at least the deficit will be gone.
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