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A Rational Shut Down Strategy

By: streiff (Diary)  |  August 3rd, 2011 at 01:29 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

In case you haven’t noticed it part of the federal government is now shut down. The Federal Aviation Administration’s budget is caught up in a disagreement between the House and Senate. The House has adjourned, except for pro forma sessions which prevent Obama from placing more commies in positions of power, which means the FAA will be unfunded until September.

As we approach yet another budgetary food fight when the current continuing resolution expires on September 30 what has happened with the FAA is instructive on how to reduce federal spending, including the elimination of agencies, without triggering a widespread government shutdown with uncertain outcomes.

Yesterday my colleague and fellow Marylander Daniel Horowitz posted a story on the shut down of the non-air traffic control functions of the FAA.

So what does this mean? About 4,000 or so FAA employees are furloughed, about $30 million in taxes and fees are uncollected each day, and airport construction work has come to a halt. The story is a convoluted one. Briefly told, the House is seeking to eliminate subsidies to rural airports outside Alaska and Hawaii. This is a small but significant battle as many unnecessary rural airports are unreasonably subsidized. The airport in Harry Reid’s district, for instance, receives subsidies to the tune of $3,700 per ticket. The Senate would allow many of these to remain. More importantly, the House seeks to keep the current rules for unionizing airport/airline employees while the Senate version would make it much easier for unions to win elections.

Carried to a logical conclusion this particular fight tells us a lot about how to rein in government spending.

I think it goes without saying that shutting down the federal government over a budget fight with the Senate or President is a losing strategy. I don’t subscribe to a lot of the interpretation of the 1995 showdown that claims it did the GOP no harm. If you lived through it, it was a divisive and destructive battle that did little to expand our base of voters and arguably gave Clinton a second wind just when he needed it most. More to the point, it is ineffective in several ways. First, it doesn’t save money. Historically, furloughed federal workers are paid retroactively once a budget or continuing resolution is passed. Second, it disrupts federal contractors, a lot of whom are small businesses. When the federal workforce is furloughed, contractors receive a “stop work order.” That means exactly what it says. For a university conducting federally funded research this means they can no longer monitor experiments or collect data. In actuality a shutdown is much more likely to force a small business into liquidation than it is to force a resisting party in the budget dispute to acquiesce.

The biggest problem with a government shutdown is that it turns out to be a thermonuclear attack on an ant colony. The scope and negative impact far outweigh the possible positive outcomes.

Federal appropriations are contained in about a dozen spending bills. Ideally, these bills would be debated and voted on separately. This ideal is rarely achieved. Usually time runs out and these spending bills are rolled into an omnibus bill at the end of the fiscal year and the House, Senate, and President are put in the position of signing the package or shutting down the entire government. In this environment fiscal sanity and conservative policy has a hard time prevailing.

But what if spending bills were required to be voted on separately? What if the dozen bills were required to be broken into small bills. We’d no longer be in the position of having to shut down the entire government over grants made by the National Endowment for the Arts or out of control regulators at the EPA. We could deal with those agencies as discrete and finite issues.

The lesson to be learned from the FAA shutdown is that smaller is better. If the FAA bill had been part of an omnibus appropriation bill we would either have to cave on the contested issues or precipitate a larger shutdown that would be hard to defend. Now the Democrats are in the position of defending billions in subsidies to airports that aren’t needed and making it easier for their union allies to organize workers who don’t really want to be unionized. The House feels so threatened by the Democrat strategy that it went on August recess without funding the agency.

If we win the Senate (assuming we keep the House) following a strategy of voting on lots of small appropriation bills would enable us to not only control the abusive rulemaking power being exercised by federal agencies under this regime but it would actually allow us to zero out federal agencies by simply not appropriating money. If we hit the jackpot and have a Republican president, we could undertake this same strategy to reduce the size and scope of government while forcing the Democrats to defend a lot of indefensible spending.

COMMENTS

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  • Scope

    budget battle was taken off the table with the debt ceiling legislation. Our own Freedoms Truth, I believe, had a diary indicating that it was handled via “deem and pass.” I read that elsewhere also. Obama doesn’t want to have any more budget/spending battles between now and election day.

    • streiff

      The debt ceiling legislation doesn’t effect the budget process at all. Read the bill.

      • Scope

        which is titled “Debt increase deal includes “Deem and Pass.” He says pretty much the same thing as this powerline article with respect to deem and pass.

        “The compromise expected to pass today, in effect, ?deems? a budget resolution passed for each of the next two fiscal years. This effectively sets the top-line spending levels?the so-called ?302(a) allocations?for both FY 2012 and FY 2013. These top-line levels are specified as follows: $1.043 trillion for FY 2012, and $1.047 trillion for FY 2013. These figures represent a reduction of $7 billion and $3 billion, respectively, in budget authority, relative to FY 2011 levels.”

        Freedoms Truth, as well as the author of the powerline article, I don’t know, but, that is where I got my info.

        • streiff

          is that it confuses budget authority with appropriations. They aren’t even close to being the same thing. You can look it up if you don’t believe me.

          • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

            Streiff, not confusing budget and appropriations.

            By getting the budget ‘deemed’ the debt ceiling deal DID take a big club out of the hands of the Republicans. By deeming and passing the budget for FY12 and FY13, we have GIVEN UP on the House passed budget. This deal usurps the Ryan roadmap. This is a point Erick Erickson made.

            I was thinking we could treat these numbers as a ceiling and take another bite at the apple, but Democrat talking point is clear that this makes that unlikely: It sets a top-line spending ‘goal’. that goal makes a Government shutdown much less likely. It is much less likely because now we have to play appropriations whack-a-mole on each individual appropriations.

            Appropriations committees work from that top-line number. The House WAS working from a different LOWER number in the House budget that what they have now! Appropriations committees are notorious pork hogs that spend whatever they can. The higher number is a green light to spend more money on the House side, so they both have similar spending. MORE SPENDING. Since the House and Senate are working from the same number, they’ll get close to same result. BINGO, all are happy except those of us wanting to cut the spending.

            More spending and harder to stop the spending via shutdown. What’s not to like for a Democrat?

            Moreover, WHY take out the FY13 budget from the hands of the House? The budget was and is a mechanism for fiscal discipline, this is why the previous Democrat Senate and House didnt even pass a budget – they had no discipline and no desire to show that lack of discipline to the voters.

            I’d love to be proven wrong, BUT the appropriations bills will line up on the spending numbers in the ‘deemed’ budget, and the leaders cannot or will not fight to a shutdown.

            Honestly, the debt ceiling deal is WORSE than if they passed a clean one and fought this fight on better terms over FY2012.

            Prove me wrong by telling me this much: Which appropriations bills will we go to mat over and for how much and what stakes?

            I’ll help you out, in HOPES the GOP leadership considers this: Defund Obamacare in HHS and refuse to pass a bill out of the House that funds Obamacare.

            I’ll GLADLY buy you a steak dinner if the GOP House actually has the cohones to do it.

          • edintexas

            There is, as the old saying goes, more than one way to skin a cat. The House Appropriations process could cut funds from the EPA, etc. and boost the DoD budget figures by an equivalent amount to arrive at the “top line spending goal”.

            Oh, wait, that is too internecine for Republicans. They would be afraid to cut EPA for fear the eco-wackos wouldn’t like them, the Democrats would call them names and the MSM would put forth stories claiming they aren’t “bi-partisan” enough.

          • Scope

            Not quite sure why my original comment caused such animosity, as the debt ceiling legislation did have an affect on the 2012 Budget negotiations. That was my point.

            According to my above quoted paragraph from powerline, for 2012 a limit of $1.043 trillion was authorized to be spent, which cuts only $7 billion in spending for that year. Suppose the House wanted to get closer to a number of say around $1 trillion for 2012? If the number $1.043 was already authorized, there is no way the Democrats, or even the Republics will spend less. It doesn’t only help the Democrats, it also helps the R leadership in not having to battle with the Tea Party newbies who have been vocal with their desire to cut and cut.

            There can, and I’m sure there will be battles on where to appropriate those dollars, but the bruising battles of how many dollars was removed. That was as much a gift to Boehner and McConnell as it was to the Democrats. Now, the $1.043 was the top limit, and that amount doesn’t have to be spent, but, until the Republican leadership in the House, and the Liberal R’s in the Senate are removed and replaced, that will never happen.

        • imforeverfree

          example—Government figures—-i earn $50,000 per year…i plan on buying a new house for $200,000 this next year but instead i buy one for $100,000 that means i had a savings of $100,000 dollars this year so i now can go out and buy a new car for $50,000 and it shows that i saved $50,000 this year. that means i was able to buy a new house and car and still had a savings of $50,000…..My figures…Earned $50,000 spent $100,000 for new house and $50,000 for the new car total $150,000 spent. Took in only $50,000. My figuring of course i only have a high school education is that i went $100,000 in debt. I guess i am not as smart as those people in Washington..Sure wished i had gotten a whole lot more math education so i could do this…In ten years i could have a millionaire dollars in the bank, bought ten new houses for $100,000 apiece, 10 new cars for $50,000 apiece. Now i am a multimillionaire. All this on $50,000 a year…Man did i mess up on not getting a higher education….SCOPE and CONGRESS please tell me what classes to take so i can learn how this is done??????????????…

          • Scope

            since you have already figured out how to make 2+2=5, and you have obviously not understood any of the posts above, a reading comprehension course should be your goal.

          • phenne

            Are you sure you don’t understand the point imforeverfree is trying to make?

            I can put it simpler, without genuflecting to Beltway people = we have a SPENDING problem, not a revenue (income) problem.

    • streiff

      and promise you wouldn’t return?

      • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

        this rooster always favored a govt shutdown strategy over a debt ceiling strategy that exposes foreign bondholders and the FF&C of the USA. more later

      • Scope

        a few names of members posting here that either took a hiatus, or left for one reason or another over the more than 3 years that I’ve been coming to RS. They are back posting. Sorry, I guess I forgot to shower before entering A Rational Shutdown strategy.

        • gekster

          Rather an observation.
          Every has the right to change thier mind.
          Women more so.
          Ask my wife.

  • Flagstaff

    is in full swing is when the little, insignificant, unimportant, drop-in-the-bucket, miniscule programs like funding for the Corp. for Public Broadcasting are being eliminated.

    If we don’t get rid of things we truly don’t need, we aren’t serious.

    • streiff

      but so long as CPB can hide in the entire federal budget it isn’t going to be touched.

  • http://www.FranBaker.com frankieb

    Could write a better, leaner budget than any one or ten or even 535 in the House or Senate.

    • Finrod

      I forget the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of how he’d rather be governed by the first 800 names in the Cambridge phone book than by the Harvard faculty.

      • edintexas

        I think it was the Boston telephone book, not Cambridge. If he had said Cambridge he would have been selecting from essentially the same universe as the Harvard faculty.

        • Finrod

          .

  • ashland_avenue

    Is there some way, for example, to remove funding for teachers and administrators involved in cheating on student achievement exams?

    http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/15/atlanta-teachers-accused-in-cheating-scandal-told-to-resign-or-be-fired/

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2011/05/30/ny_teachers_tell_of_quotmandatedquot_cheating_256330.html

    • streiff

      aren’t provided by federal appropriations

      • falgore

        No doubt some would love this opportunity.

      • acat

        and otherwise launder tax money back to the school districts…

        So, while it’s true to say that they’re not paying, there are very few districts that would continue to function uninterrupted if Dept.Ed funds got held up.

        That is not to say that Dept.Ed shouldn’t be shut down. It should. There is no justification in the Constitution for the Fed to be in education, they’re there for one reason – indoctrination. This cat’s dream is to see Dept.Ed converted to writing block grants and phased out over 10 years. That should give the States enough time to get their educational houses in order.

        Mew

        • runner12

          same dream regarding the Dept. Of Education. We just need to elect someone with the guts enough to do it.

          • edintexas

            Though I think it will take more than “someone”, probably more like 3 or 400 someones.

            For Acat: And I don’t think the states will ever be able to get their “educational houses in order” until the stranglehold of the Leftist “educators” is broken and we begin educating our young, rather than indoctrinating them.

          • acat

            Gotta break the shackles one at a time…

            Mew

  • snowshooze

    And I agree whole-heartedly that each funding item, each agency on the whole, should stand alone rather than bundle for cover.

    This would kill a lot of pork.

    So far as the FAA goes, they are screaming about the billion dollars they are losing…

    Those aren’t losses, they are SAVINGS!!! Yaay! We are headed in the right direction! It doesn’t matter if the industry absorbs the savings ahead of the consumer, they are STILL savings.

    And the loss of 4000 plus jobs, most of which generate nothing but red tape, taxes, regulation and debt…if they are employable at all in the private sector.. moves them off the overhead and liability side of the balance sheet over to the asset side where they may provide useful products or services..

    The difference in the ledger is many times the billion they claim to have lost, many times to the good!

    Anyway, what I see here is good.

    There innumerable government agencies and programs which are buried deeply in larger budgets, many we have never heard of which if exposed and budgeted independently, would never stand a chance.

  • Rhampton

    I’d also like to see sunset provisions as a requirement (when applicable)

    • carolina

      Keep congress busy reeacting some old laws & regs – so they don’t have time to write new ones!

      • aesthete

        Somewhere in my wishlist of state/federal constitutional amendments is one that has every piece of legislation not pertaining to the defense have a sunset clause of 10 years which would require a 60% majority to renew.

        • edintexas

          Thanks for the commonsense exclusion of Defense from Sunset requirements.

        • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

          Sunset is a good reform. Here’s a full list of Key Budget Process Reforms We Need:
          1. Sunset all agencies on 10 year basis or less.
          2. Have a 2 year budget. Like they do in Texas.
          3. Let the President impound/line-item-veto spending.
          4. the Connie Mask IV penny plan. Cut spending 1%/yr until it is under 18% of GDP.
          5. House and Senate spend-go rules. Dont spend $1 without cutting $1 somewhere else.
          6. Add Congressional rules to require supermajority for tax increases.

  • Common_Cents

    1. Builds in accountability for votes. How often do you hear some DC elite say they voted for or against a specific item in a larger bill and they cannot be held accountable for their vote?

    2. Separate bills will keep CONgress busy so they do less damage.

  • kowalski

    Requiring the kind of fine-grained reporting about spending is really not what America can handle. We’d do nothing but debate the narrowest points of everything, forever.

    What has to happen is a real cap on spending that forces the legislators themselves to cut the budget.

    • kowalski

      I have almost zero confidence that Americans will do the “right thing” once the tiny intricacies of the budget are revealed to them on a line-by-line vote or in smaller parcels.

      The country will become more ungovernable than California and it will be a nightmare. The only thing to do is to enforce hard limits on how much legislators can spend and force them to make the choices. They’re our representatives.

      • kowalski

        Half the people will argue the other way on an increasingly fine-grained number of budget items.

        There are probably 100 items under consideration for the military that if you listed them here would do nothing but generate armchair speculation about their worth and benefits by people who know nothing about why and how they’re under consideration.

        You can’t do direct democracy this way, not in this country and not anywhere else.

        I don’t believe in direct democracy on line items in the budget. It’s a recipe for *real* armageddon. Nobody, believe me nobody, will advocate for the things they think their ideological ‘enemy’ wants – and America is more ideological and polarized than ever. We’ll die in a suffocating fit, unable to breathe.

        • kowalski

          In reality it’s very hard for people to even really understand the budgets and expenditures of the towns they live in, much less the states the towns reside in and the country at large.

          I don’t even think 10% of the people in this country could accurately place the federal debt within an order of magnitude and explain it in terms of the money in their bank account or the total amount of money they’ve earned in the course of their lives, much less debate line items in the federal budget.

          I’m very pessimistic about the idea that people can even constrain their town budgets and place a limit on federal spending based on that. I don’t know whether we even have the societal will to do those things.

          The only people who will care will be the ideologues and frankly there is very little evidence to support the idea that anyone will be better off with such a radical reorganization of expenditure.

          • aesthete

            of making people realize the sort of minutiae that government spends money on, and in that sense would be a useful approach if we were solely seeking to eliminate tangled bureaucracies. This is a worthy goal, of course, but the meat of deficit reduction is going to be cuts to military and entitlements, especially the latter, given that “only” ~20% of the budget is tied up in the sort of discretionary spending that could be cut by the selective shutdown strategy above.

  • victrola

    The biggest problem with the growth of Big Government is you have a few popular programs that are necessary and an enormous amount of waste and pork.

    Whenever a city or town faces budget cuts, the first thing they threaten is to get rid of police officers and fire fighters and release prisoners. They never threaten to lay off DMV staff or positions at the local library. It’s the same with the Federal Budget, you talk about making cuts, and all Democrats can talk about is Social Security and MediCare.

    Breaking things up makes a BIG difference in what types of coalitions can be created to fight these cuts, and right now, it’s a VERY tough case for proponents of Big Government to keep this program because there just isn’t a groundswell of support.