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Go for the 5% and save us at least $22 billion, if not more. Most gov't agencies, now burdening the gov't and American People, should be either disbanded or reduced to a minimum.

We want financial freedom. Not an expensive nanny.

Great job on your First Post, by the way!  Keep on slashing..

Homeland security and defense out of it? If its only a 2 or 3 % cut then surely there is some waste that can be cut from every part of the government. Some programs that can be delayed? Some procurement that can be rebid?

  Cut it all, I am sick of Washington and their habits.

everyone (governmentally speaking) can tighten their non-defense, non-discretionary budgets by 5% at least

As one of the people who was worried about the impact of the EITC restrictions, I'd like to thank you for responding to our concerns, Congresswoman Blackburn!  

If someone could provide a little more data on the new version of the pre-certification process, that would be greatly appreciated.  Earlier versions of pre-certification have mired potential EITC recipients in excessive bureaucracy, and I'd like to be sure that this won't happen with the current reforms.  The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities identified some problems with earlier versions of the pre-certification process that posed excessive difficulties for EITC filers:

-Many filers would be required to provide marriage certificates for marriages that did not include the filer (and may have taken place decades ago).  Some states will not provide these documents to people who are not immediate family members.  Other states, while providing these documents, warn that doing so will take several months,  which could prevent some filers from meeting IRS deadlines.  

-Many filers would be required to provide an affidavit from a third party, signed under penalty of perjury, attesting that the person completing the affidavit has "personal  knowledge" that the filer and the child lived together at a specific address during  certain months of the year.  The difficulty here is that the IRS would strictly limit the  types of people permitted to fill out the affidavit.  Neighbors and building managers  or supervisors, who in many cases will be the only people who possess this personal  knowledge, would not be permitted to complete these affidavits.  Individuals who  would be permitted to complete the affidavits, such as clergy, employers, landlords, or school officials, often will not have the necessary personal knowledge of the filer's  living arrangements.  

These requirements are considerably more rigid than those imposed by other federal  programs.  No other major federal program demands that applicants furnish documents such as  marriage certificates, for example.  Other federal programs encourage use of neighbors and other  knowledgeable individuals as a source of third-party information.  

Again, thanks for responding to our concerns!

Sorry, I've been waiting to do that for months..

:)

Thanks for being here. You're far ahead of your Republican colleagues in your willingness to engage. Kudos to you - and I can't wait to help make sure you stay right where you are - on Capitol Hill.

one day, maybe on the other side of Capitol Hill. The Senate is even worse than the House.

Like we're going to walk right into a repeat of the Mediscare battle of 1995.  We know how thjat one went...

Thanks, I'll pass.  The consequences of losing that fight - specifically, the risk that a party that is at best incompetent (as demonstrated by the Clinton Administration) and at worst, run by lunatics (as demonstrated by Howard Dean and MoveOn.org) is just too great.

In case nobody noticed, there is a war on terrorism going on - and to put it bluntly, the only party that seems to be running it competently is the Republicans.  I'd advise against picking fights unless we're sure we can win them.

With all due respect to Rep. Blackburn, across the board budget cuts are the easy way out and we should expect better.  Different goverment programs are...well... different.... in every way  -- including administive efficiency, cost/benefit and priority.  Ignoring these differences for the purpose of hasty-enacted budget-cutting disincents the best of the people, managers and programs at the expense of the worst of them and yields short-term results but discourages smart decision-making and retention of talent in the long term, punishes the top perfomers in an organization and encourages the acculation of budgetary fat to help absord the next round of anticipated cuts.   Is it unreasonable to ask out representatives to make the careful informed budget cuts rather then let off the hook and wield a blunt axe?  

Thanks, I'll pass.  The consequences of losing that fight - specifically, the risk that a party that is at best incompetent (as demonstrated by the Clinton Administration) and at worst, run by lunatics (as demonstrated by Howard Dean and MoveOn.org) is just too great.

Harold, can you remember when the tax-cut wing of the Republican party got fed up with Bush Sr. and either did not show for the 1992 election or went and voted Perot?  I think it is important to fight this fight considering the Bush has been a big spender, in order to keep the Republican coalition (which is independent-minded and fickle) from collapsing and allowing the Deaniacs from taking power.  You will lose your tax cuts, and then some.

Across the board cuts are the worst way of cutting a budget though admittedly the easier course of action.

Better to eliminate entire programs or functions within programs.

Will fiscal conservatives provide more votes that will be lost as the result of a big Mediscare battle?  We found out the hard way that the American people didn't exactly embrace the implementation of speding cuts.

Show me that it will be won, and I might go along.  Otherwise, this is the wrong fight at the wrong time.

Though, isn't it? Rather than having to placate 200+ Don Youngs, you just give everybody's pork a small whacking and if they complain, they expose themselves as legitimate porkers, rather than someone looking out for their own district.

Let's assume a 5% across the board cut.

A big program, say $150 million, is okay. They cut back on travel and paper clips and move along.

The programs at the $1 million to about $5 million could very well lose enough money that they can't do very much, if anything, and you essentially waste the other 95%. If you are interested in savings, why not just cut entire programs as your first option and go to across the board cuts as a back up?

the cut whole programs approach and got slaughtered by the GOP leadership?

The EITC is the best argument against a "living wage" minimum wage that would block entry-level workers from the job market and destroy many small businesses. (Meanwhile few breadwinners earn or long stay at the minimum wage.) Since fraud provides an argument for those who would kill the program, guarding against fraud is critical. But precertification is not the answer; it is an unneccesasy burden that would unduly affect the poor. (Do middle-class filers precertify before claiming their non-refundable dependent deductions?)

Valid Social Security numbers are needed to claim the benefit, and cannot be used by more than one filer. Finding scofflaws, then, should be easy, and the same method could be used to find deceitful dependent deductions among the working non-poor.

One thing I dislike about the EITC is the windfall nature of it. Give a man several buckets of fish and things get smelly. Should precertification be enacted it would only be justified if it resulted in estimated quarterly (or monthly) payments being made to the filer claiming the refundable credit.

Tangentially, I noted on the IRS site that "You cannot get the Earned Income Tax Credit if the SSN was issued solely for use in applying for or receiving federally funded benefits." What exactly is any Social Security number meant for besides "receiving federally funded benefits"?

and I don't doubt it for a second. But it doesn't take away from the fact that across the board cuts can end up increasing the amount of money wasted while reducing costs on paper. This is the equivalent of "zero tolerance" policies that get kids expelled for drawing a picture of a gun.

But you can only implement a policy that you can get passed. Sadly, I think there are too many Don Youngs in Congress (and that is not restricted only to Republicans) to get this done any other way.

So I guess the question is, is it worthwhile to see an increase in waste for a decrease in overall spending?

so long as the people doing it are making the conscious decision that the waste is worthwhile.

Many of the folks in the GOP Leadership were around for the Mediscare campaign.  Remember that?  They were not even trying to eliminate programs - they were just trying reduce the rate of growth.  That was how and when Bill Clinton won his second term.

We thought it couldn't get worse than Clinton, but one look at the Democratic Party today, and we see a party whose levers of power are controlled by lunatics.  We might not be able to afford the spending, but we definitely cannot afford to turn the country over to the Deaniacs.

My approach would be to run a full-scale audit of Medicare, Social Security, and all non-Defense/Homeland Security programs.  Let's quantify the fraud and waste, get the proof before the American people, and then try to restructure the programs to eliminate those, and force the Democrats to defend fraud and waste.

It'll take longer, it will mean higher deficits in the short-term, but I think it would create the conditions for a winning battle.

I'm not against spending cuts - I'm just against stupid political banzai charges that would leaves us worse off than before.

Bill Clinton won his second term because he ran against Bob Dole. Nothing more, nothing less.

Besides which, one of the things that Republicans supposedly stand for is fiscal responsibility. If they are going to abandon fiscal responsibility to get votes, there's no reason for fiscal conservatives to vote for them.

We don't vote Republicans into power so we can get Democrats.

An excellent proposal, a great approach, and a clear explanation of your thinking on the EITC (I was one of your critics).  Keep on doing what you're doing.

The programs at the $1 million to about $5 million could very well lose enough money that they can't do very much, if anything, and you essentially waste the other 95%. If you are interested in savings, why not just cut entire programs as your first option and go to across the board cuts as a back up?

You're looking at the initial proposal, which correctly proposes an across-the-board cut.  As part of negotiations, it may be appropropriate to modify aspects of the proposal in order to make it more progressive -- to, say, apply no cut to programs under 10 million, 2% cut to programs between 10-100 million, and a 5% cut to programs over 100 million.  But you don't start with complexity like that; you expect that complexity will be added by the system.  Best to start simple and straightforward, as Rep. Blackburn appears to have done (I haven't actually read the bills).

At one point I managed a $4 million federal project. Small potatoes in my agency but still a lot of pizzas.

If I had lost 5% of the budget the project would have ground to a halt and I could either have let the appropriation lapse (not a good career move) or I could have spent it essentially playing tiddlywinks. So yes, you would have saved a whopping  $200,000 but you would have gotten zero return on the $3.8 million. That's catching minnows and ignoring sharks in my book.

I agree with Leon, there is no way Congressmen with oversight over programs are going to negotiate away their appropriations at a greater rate than their neighbor does. So I don't think you ever get to the negotiation stage as a matter of process.

So we really have a Hobson's choice here by virtue of the appropriations system.

Could have won after Mediscare.  The American people had been convicned that the Democrats were the only thing protecting Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment from being destroyed by the Republicans.

The 1996 primaries were simply deciding who the sacrificial lamb would be.

I responded this to your previous rant on Mediscare.  I believe it applies here as well.

These are the folks who are up in 2006. And in 1996, the GOP gained two seats in the Senate, and lost 12 in the House. That was, I think, primarily a re-alignment from 1994, and so I would consider the congressional election of 1996 to have been a wash.

You're right that the 1996 primaries were a sacrifical lamb, but that had more to do with Clinton and a dearth of viable candidates than it did with Mediscare.

One proposal that should be on the table is to means-test both Medicare and Social Security.  As I see it this would have several advantages.

First, as these are the first and third largest federal programs, any structural reductions would have significant savings today and in the future as they are expected to balloon when the baby boom generation hits retirement.  The sooner we change it, the more we can save both now to close the immediate deficit and later on to reduce the unfunded liabilities of these programs.

Second, it can be easily be defended by playing off the Democrats' call for "rolling back" "tax cuts for the wealthy" because they don't "need" (to keep more of their own money).  If Democrats wish to argue that the wealthiest 1 percent, 5 percent, or 10 percent of Americans do not "need" to keep more of their own money, they cannot possibly justify with any defensibility this same wealthiest 1 percent, 5 percent, or 10 percent of Americans receiving government benefits (Medicare and Social Security) that are paid for by someone else's money particularly when the "someone else" is almost certainly going to be poorer and middle income taxpayers.  Playing of the Democrats' own class warfare card by cutting off "benefits for the rich" is practically a get out of jail free card in politics.

Third, these will be cuts that affect the smallest number of people who are least likely to be harmed by it.  The overwhelming majority of citizens (the bottom 99 percent, 95 percent, or 90 percent) wouldn't be touched by means-testing and the ones affected by it probably wouldn't care that much since they're in the best position to fund their own retirement and health care expenses.  

Fourth, by going after "benefits for the rich"  first, we have political cover to deal with less popular cuts by truthfully saying that this is a "shared sacrifice" because the very wealthy have had to forego their benefits first.

Privatization will not happen in this Adminstration; means testing is the next best thing.  

Better to propose it after the '06 elections, however.

Aren't your concerns essentially resolved by making the cuts progressive (as I proposed, above)?  Under the scenario that I outlined, your $4 million project would have continued to have been funded at $4 million.

Fifth, I think that there is a grave misinterpretation of what the public thinks about Medicare and Social Security versus what they may say to pollsters.  People generally aren't stupid, they want the benefit of these programs because they've come to rely on them but they understand that they're fundamentally unsustainable in their current forms and that changes will have to be made sooner or later or else it's going to be hell for their kids and grandkids.  What they fear is that the changes will hurt their parents, the very poor who "need" these programs, or cause them to become a burden on their families.   As such they're going to resist any change that they think will cause them to become a burden while at the same time knowing that change is going to happen sooner or latter.  What means-testing does it provides at least part of the change that most people realize will have to happen to these programs without hurting the poor, hurting current recipients, or forcing a middle class mom and dad to become a burden on their kids.  By focusing on only cutting off the richest 1 percent, 5 percent, or 10 percent who we're already told don't "need" to keep more of their own money, we protect the most vulnerable while relieving a lot of the anxiety at the same time.

100% of the fight associated with PSAs and 0% of the benefits.

The same groups who oppose PSAs are going to oppose means testing of SS just as vigorously. Their fear is that once it is means tested it will start to be looked at as a "welfare" program and not some kind of national treasure that separates us from the beasts of the field.

So while I'm in favor of it, I think it is really giving us next to nothing that we want or need.

I think you might be misreading the Rep.'s proposal.  As I understand it, she's proposing an across the board cut at the agency level; the agencies would then decide how to implement the cut (which may result in your project being left alone, cut completely, or even increased).  Congress wouldn't engage in the kind of micromanaging that you foresee.

I just don't think you're ever going to get the mechanics of the appropriations system to do that, or at least in my two years of working with appropriators on three committees (Armed Services, Labor-yadda-yadda, and Veterans Affairs) I never saw anyone willing to take a 5% cut so someone else could take 2%. Just my take on reality.

And don't mistake me, I'd rather the 5% across the board cut than no cut just so long as we know the real impact of the across the board cuts.

of that kind of an idea. I'm also in favor of biennial budgeting which I think could do a lot to stop waste.

However, budgets have historically been appropriated by program and by line-item within the programs. My particular agency for this sad tale had a budget of about $360 million and it was all earmarked for specific activities except for just under $6 million.

It's a politically neutral term since people think in terms of "Social Security benefits" and does not have any connotations of whether one considers the programs good or bad.

And I think you're mistaken as to why we got the fight we did over PSA's, it was because people were convinced that their benefits would be cut (which they will under the current system) thereby impoverishing the elderly and/or making middle class people a burden on their kids.  By focusing cuts (which everyone acknowledges will have to happen unless they're going to enact a major job-killing tax increase) on only those who we're told (a) don't "need" to keep more of their own money and (b) should be paying more for Social Security via raising the FICA cap, we avoid most of that fight because 90-95-99 percent of the population won't be touched and the remaining 10-5-1 percent is less likely to raise much of a fuss since they're less likely to depend on these programs or miss the benefits from them.

Sooner or later we're going to have to talk about "cuts" rather it is slowing the rate of growth of the programs (COLA's, going from wage-indexing to price indexing, phasing in a higher retirement age) or making actual cuts to someone's benefits.  Even with PSA's they wouldn't have closed the entire gap (although they'd mitigate it over the long run) which is why they're the "carrot" proposed with the "stick" of some other reform.  

BTW: this is for Medicare as well as Social Security, particularly since Medicare is a much larger and more immediate problem (which the other side uses as an excuse not to do anything about either).  The other side has been playing the class warfare angle to try to roll back tax cuts or to raise FICA taxes.  Means-testing is simply the corollary to that and it counters the Democrats' own counter proposal.

What is being proposed is not a 1, 2 and 5 per cent cut in the budget as a whole, but rather the "discretionary spending" budget. That a 5 per cent cut would result in a savings of only 22 billion is a pretty good indicator that it's a fairly small portion of the overall federal budget that's under consideration.

The notion that somehow I am either "weak" or less-principled because I think we are facing some very serious consequences if we lose.

And as Nick Danger has pointed out:

People don't want it. They say they do, but when you threaten to give it to them, they vote for the Other Guys. It took Republican politicians decades to figure this out, and most Republican voters still haven't figured it out. The fastest way to become the minority political party in the United States is to become the party of government frugality and fiscal discipline. Let the Democrats do that. We've been there, done that, and have Bob Dole to prove it.

Due to the war on terror, I do not think the country can afford to the Democrats as the majority party.  If that means deferring spending cuts, so be it.

If this doesn't turn out like past banzai charges have, I'd be glad to admit so.  But looking at the situation, right now, I'm more than a little disinclined to take chances, and I don't appreciate your condescension.

Because by accepting the excuse that we cannot cut spending and balance the budget otherwise we'll lose to the Democrats we are guaranteeing that is exactly what will happen.

Right now Republicans are vulnerable over the budget issue but it's a mistake to compare ourselves to the House and Senate Republicans who wanted to spend more.  Chances are very good that Democrats can and will run a Democratic governor (e.g. Phil Bresden of Tennessee) with a pro-business, fiscally conservative (in terms of balancing budgets), and socially moderate without any foreign policy baggage who can triangulate himself into the "smarter hawk" mode.  

By not getting serious about spending and showing that we're willing to make the tough choices, we are simply paving the way for a Democratic candidate who promises to do just that.

Anyone to the right of John Kerry cannot win the nomination of the Democratic Party as long as the Deaniacs and MoveOn.org are the major brokers.  Because of her vote on the war, Hillary might not even win the nomination.

. . . even though the Deaniacs and MoveOn.org wanted Clark or Dean.  Probably because they tend to have more influence online (where we're talking politics) than they do in the real world.

Something else to consider, Republicans will most certainly keep the House and Senate in 2006 (probably pick up a couple of seats in the latter) which will make Democrats hungry for a victory.  In a case like that, they'll want someone who can win.

As a nominee can go.  And back then, they did not control the levers of the DNC.  Now they do.

I think the 2006 elections will be close to a stalemate - maybe a one-seat pickup in the Senate with a three-seat change either way at most in the House.  I think Santorum will lose, but Steele and Kennedy (in MN) will win.

Anyone that the KosKidz or MoveOn.org sees as Republican lite is DOA as the nominee.

the OKC bombing. Unfairly, it is true, but that calamity was hung around the necks of the GOP and allowed Clinton to claim the mantle of moderate barring the door against dangerous extremism--in which he was handily abetted by some true extremists like the Clinton Chronicles folks, who gave an aura of unablanced nuttiness to the GOP in general.

So let's suppose this gets passed and every non-defense and homeland security program cuts 5%.  As much as most of us dislike the IRS a cut in that budget adversely impacts the tax receipts of the Federal government, and just might lose a lot more than would be saved.

I'm a retired public school budget administrator and can tell you from first hand experience that across the board budget cuts sound so effective and equitable, but break down in reality.  And, BTW, I think there's an enormous amount that CAN be cut from the Federal budget, and agree that it's a battle that will draw (political) blood, and a lot of it.

Walter

The type of cut that Blackburn seems to be advocating is not an across the board, every program gets cut by 5%.

She seems to be calling for a 5% cut accross all accounts, which are larger amalgamations of dozens, if not hundreds, of programs.

Cabinet Secretaries (and OMB) will then have the ability to figure out how to come up with their share of the cut across programs.

Example:

Let's say Education has to cut by $3.4 billion total.

Instead of taking a portion off of each program, the Secretary could cut significant chunks out of several programs and leave other programs alone.  There are several big ticket programs that are useless and the Admin can take several hundred million out of them for their savings.  Education alone has about 500 million in pork projects, cut those first.  There's another 1 or 2 billion in smaller programs that aren't national in scope and the Admin could cut those.  It's a matter of prioritizing.

I can't get the bills on Thomas yet (it usually takes a day or two), but there is probably some Executive discretion here.  (I'll reexamine this when the bills are on-line.)  They can choose which programs to cut, where to find savings, and reach their required share of the savings.

Even if it doesn't add up to a whole lot, it's a useful exercise to start cutting and finding places where we don't really need to keep spending just because of programmatic inertia.

is an eminently sensible solution but who is going to be the first Republican to suggest it?  Medicare and Social Security for the wealthy are not so much a necessity for them as they are a bribe to get them to participate in the system without complaining too loudly.  Make them ineligible and they will no longer be willing to participate and since they have inordinate clout they will start demanding to be exempted from FICA and Medicare taxes altogether.

Democrats, probably justifiably, would see such a move as a first step in completely dismantling the system.  

for benefit increases and moved the program back towards the elderly poverty prevention it originally was.

being tested were going to be all but the poorest recipients of SS, not the wealthiest 5 or 10%.

(envisioned under current formula) for all but the bottom 20% as I recall.

The dems should have jumped on it. It would also give lower income individuals a real asset as well. It showed me further evidence that the desm stand for nothing anymore. This was a great propossal that would make allamericans a property owner and a capitalist. But them that's the rub isn't it. Dems want dependants only.

It is the easy way out.  But it's the only way it will happen.  If we believe congress will just do the right thing we are sadly mistaken.

I would like to commend Rep. Blackburn. It's a start.  I see no other way to make congress do the right thing other than forcing them to.  I have long believed that the budget should be removed from the hands of congress.  History has shown that congress cannot stop the spending and will find any excuse to spend.

From the first step a congressman or woman takes the halls of congress he/she is indoctrinated quickly to the way congress does business.  I won't vote for you bill unless you vote for mine.  Even though your bill may help the country while the other bill is just pork.  

Look at Katrina.  Already they are lining up to add pork to a disaster.

http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=CCAGW_get_inv_Advocacy_
HurricaneRelief_IssuePage

It is truly sad that we have to write congress to get them to do what we know is right.

You and I would think that they would eliminate the pork from the highway bill to help off set the cost of Katrina.   That will not happen.  No one will do the right thing.

They face pressures from their home state to bring home the bacon.  What is good for their state is good for reelection.  No matter that it is not good for the country.

We have a system that puts the state above and beyond the needs of the country.

They face pressures from constituents and those contributing to their campaigns.  

They all have their personal projects they will not give up even if it's for the good of the country.  They are surrounded by lobbyist's who pay for their elections and help to reelect them. Why would they cut their own throat and do the right thing when they will loose the campaign contributions from the lobbyist? Since 2000 we have increased the number of lobbyist's in Washington from 16000 to 36000.  (It's a growing industry)

 When questioned on the highway bill and Katrina, Senator McCain said he would give up his pork on the highway bill, .... But only if everyone else does.  

No one it seems will do the right thing just because it's the right thing to do.    

The best way to stop spending would be to take it out of the hands of congress.  We could tie the budget to the GNP or cap the budget.  This is your budget and all you get.  If you need more for education you will need to cut something else.  

We could make four simple changes that would help the country.

1.  Cap the budget.
   
2. Require 5% across the board cuts every year until the budget is balanced. Congress can            make the choices as to which programs get cut or eliminated.
   
3. If a company or lobbyist gives you or your party campaign money you are required to recluse yourself from voting on any issues affecting this industry.
   
4. Each bill must pass on its own merits and nothing can be added to the bill.  (No pork)

I have high hopes that we will eliminate the big spenders in congress.  Republican or Democrat I want them out. But I fear this is wishful thinking.  

I wish Representative Blackburn the best on a wise and noble pursuit.  

I thought the Highway Bill is funded out of dedicated funds a portoin of which has to go back to the States equally.  I would love to see the funds for rebuilding the transportation infrastructure (which benefits the entire country and economy) come from the Highway Bill spending.

I would love it if we could say to the country  - "This has to be done and we all have to pitch in.  Every State has to kick in 20% of what they were going to get from the Highway Bill - and we are going to let each State's representatives and Senators decide what's getting axed."

The longest journey begins with a single step. On the other hand, if this is the only step to reduced spending, it may be too small to be worthwhile. Spending is up about 30% since Clinton years. A first step to whacking that down would get my full support.