No Deal! The Super Committee Fails!

Well well well, the Super Committee, established in August of this year, ostensibly to “find” 1.2 trillion dollars in “savings” in the federal budget, has failed.  Surprised?  No?  Neither am I.  If one looks at the requirement of this committee one is bound to be dumbfounded as to why it couldn’t achieve the goal of trimming 1.2 Trillion dollars from the federal budget, after all, the “trimming” or “savings” was to be spread over 10 years!  That’s about 100 billion a year out of a 1 trillion dollar plus budget!  Of the 1.2 trillion Congress was going to consider cutting 18% is considered as interest savings so that isn’t even a real cut!  These “guys” are clever. 

Cutting spending isn’t going to happen with this Congress and this President.  The politicians are already gearing up for a “change” to the law that requires the automatic spending cuts.  Congress continues to “kick the can” down the road putting off the hard decisions that need to be made if our economy is to survive.

There was a poison pill in the creation of this committee; if they failed to come up with a plan then an “automatic” featured kicked in that mandated specific cuts in spending.  One of them has to do with our military budget.  It is estimated that it, the military spending, would be cut by about 550 billion dollars!  Yipes!  But wait, it is really only  55 billion a year.  Remember the “cuts” are spread out over 10 years.  That would be about 10% of its present budget.  Representative Howard McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee wrote to the Super Committee "Unless we act today, the dismantling of the greatest armed forces in history could begin tomorrow,"  Really?  C’mon.  Really?

Does it ever occur to anyone in Washington D.C. that maybe, just maybe, we could bring some of  our troops home from all of the various places in the world and save some money?  We have troops in Germany. Why?  Troops in Japan.  Why?  The war is over folks!  We financially support NATO even though many of our allies do not.

What would happen if we simply began to tap into our oil/gas reserves here and simply packed up and left the Middle East?  The savings would be enormous both in lives and dollars.  What does Congress do?   Congress kicks this can down the road avoiding the difficult decisions and opting instead for rhetoric and empty promises.

There are plenty of Americans that have cut much more than 10% from their budgets!  They didn’t get a choice.  They can’t spread it out over ten years, they simply had to cut.  Many more loss everything, their jobs, homes and hope.  Many seniors loss the equity in their homes and the value of their IRA’s and 401s.  What has Congress done about this mess?  Nothing, really, Congress has done nothing.  Instead of helping Main street they opted to rescue Wall Street.  And what has that gotten us?  Nothing.

One would think that Congress would, could, “find” 100 billion dollars a year in cuts or savings.  Perhaps they could reduce the incredible number of duplicate programs that waste our dollars?

The Government Accounting Office has “discovered” the following: 15 different agencies overseeing food safety laws.  There are 20 “separate programs to help the homeless and 80 programs for economic development.”  Add to that list another 82 programs to “improve teacher quality” and “ 80 to help disadvantaged people with transportation, 47 (programs) for job training…” and “56 to help people understand finances (apparently members of Congress forgot to sign up for this one.)”

The report continued, “…five divisions within the Department of Transportation account for 100 different programs that fund things like highways, rail projects and safety programs.

One program that funnels transportation funds to the states "functions as a cash-transfer general-purpose grant program, rather than as a tool for pursuing a cohesive national transportation policy," the report said. Similarly, it chided the government over encouraging federal agencies to purchase plug-in hybrid vehicles while having policies that agencies reduce electricity consumption. It said government agencies have purchased numerous vehicles that run on alternative fuels only to find many gas stations don’t sell alternative fuels. This has led government agencies to turn around and request waivers so they didn’t have to use alternative fuels.

A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation said the president’s budget for fiscal year 2012 "proposes to cut waste, inefficiency and bureaucracy by consolidating over 55 separate highway programs into five core programs, and by merging six transit programs into two programs."

On teacher quality, the report identified 82 programs that often have similar descriptions and goals and are spread across 10 federal agencies, including the Department of Education, the Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Nine of these programs are linked to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Fifty-three of the programs are relatively small, receiving $50 million or less, "and many have their own separate administrative processes."

The GAO highlighted 80 different economic development programs at the Department of Commerce, HUD, Department of Agriculture and Small Business Administration, that spent a combined $6.5 billion last year and often overlapped. For example, the four agencies combined to have 52 different programs that fund "entrepreneurial efforts," 35 programs for infrastructure, and 26 programs for telecommunications. It said 60% of the programs fund only one or two activities, making them "the most likely to overlap because many of them can only fund the same limited types of activities."

The report took aim at several military programs, which could prove thorny because many lawmakers from both parties are wary to cut defense spending. It said there were 130,000 military and government medical professionals, 59 Defense Department hospitals and hundreds of clinics that could benefit from consolidating administrative, management and clinical functions.

For example, it said the government "may have developed duplicate" programs to counter improvised explosive devices, with the Marine Corps and the Army paying to develop similar "mine rollers." The Marine mine roller costs $85,000, and the Army mine roller costs $77,000 to $225,000. "Officials disagree about which system is most effective, and [the Pentagon] has not conducted comparative testing and evaluation of the two systems," the report said. The Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The GAO study was required by a provision inserted by Sen. Coburn into a law that raised the federal borrowing limit last year. This report is the first produced in response to the provision.”

How about them apples?  Now, ask yourself, is it really that difficult for Congress to “find” about 100 billion dollars a year in savings or cuts?

Members of Congress are more concerned with their reelection than the financial health of our nation.  They aren’t voting with courage, courage to face the crisis our nation faces.  They aren’t representing us, the people on Main Street.  What are they doing?

There are two things that I find incredible in all of this; first, the inability of Congress to cut spending in any meaningful way.  Second the stupidity of the average voter that continues to send the same people back to Congress and expect things to change.

Hal

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