How Republicans Should Attack Government Spending

Now that the Republicans have control of the House, what can they do to reduce government spending? I am sure they will try to tackle discretionary spending first since its budget is directly controlled by the House. Discretionary spending includes all expenditures that are not required by law. In 2010, discretionary spending made up 38% of the national budget or about 1.39 trillion. Most discretionary spending goes to fund the Department of Defense and Homeland Security – about 844 billion dollars. Non-defense spending made up 553 billion dollars of the budget, which was dispersed amongst Health and Human Services (84 billion), Transportation (76 billion), Education (47 billion), House and Urban Development (44 billion), Agriculture (25 billion) and other departments (277 billion). Mandatory spending programs amounted to 2.18 trillion dollars or about 62% of the national budget – Social Security (678 billion), Medicare (453 billion), Medicaid (290 billion), Interest (164 billion), Disaster funding (11 billion) and other mandatory programs (571 billion).

In 2010, the federal government raised about 2.38 trillion dollars in revenue through taxes. The end result was a 1.18 trillion dollar deficit for the fiscal year. This means the government has to reduce spending considerably to get our deficit under control. A 35% across the board cut of all mandatory and discretionary spending programs is needed to balance the budget (this is, of course, impossible to accomplish).

What can we learn by looking at the budget numbers, especially when it comes to discretionary spending? Many conservatives, especially neoconservatives, only consider the non-defense portion of the discretionary budget (533 billion - about 1/7 of the total budget) available for budget cuts. Even if conservatives were able to cut a considerable portion of the non-defense discretionary budget (533 billion dollar portion), it is not enough to get spending under control (a 20% reduction amounts 110 billion dollars, which still leaves a budget shortfall of over 1 trillion dollars). Conservatives need to seriously consider making massive budget cuts to defense spending. I find it hard to believe that our country could not be defended properly with an annual budget in the 500 to 600 billion dollar range. If Republicans reduce the defense budget it would benefit them in many ways:

1.It will demonstrate to the American people that Republicans are reasonable, sensible, and willing to compromise simply because they are making cuts to programs they strongly believe in. It will also demonstrate they are serious about getting our national debt under control.
2.It will rid many Republicans of the “war monger” label.
3.This will give Republicans ammunition to use against Democrats to force them to make proportional cuts to programs they support.
4.Defense cuts could also be used as a means to compromise on not only other discretionary cuts, but on legislation to reform mandatory entitlement spending programs to lower their rising costs.
5.Without putting defense cuts on the table as a bargaining chip, no spending cuts will make it through a Senate filibuster or a Presidential veto. Thus, there will not be any significant progress made on reducing the size of government and government spending in the next two years, which could have a catastrophic effect similar to Greece or Ireland.
6.If Bush era tax cuts remain in place, this will make our deficit larger in the short term meaning significant spending cuts are needed more than ever – including defense cuts.
7.While making defense cuts Republicans should consider privatizing certain departments (such as NASA). This is the easiest and least painful way to reduce the defense budget without putting national security at risk.
8.Defense spending cuts make sense since the biggest near term threat to United States’ national security is our debt (owned by China), and not a full out attack by terrorists or a rogue nation against the United States.