Courtesy of the friendly folks at the Cato Institute:
‘The Senate yesterday passed nearly $40 billion in spending reductions in a furious pre-Christmas finish marked by testy floor debate and a rare tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Dick Cheney,’ Knight Ridder reports. Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, comments: ‘Passage of the bill is an important symbolic victory for fiscal conservatives in Congress, but the bill would reduce baseline spending by just a microscopic 0.3%. Note also that the bill would not actually ‘cut’ spending, it would just slightly reduce the explosive growth in programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
0.3% you say? My… we should all be so grateful for the crumbs off such a table.
Edwards is right. 0.3% of a budget that is exploding with tax dollars isn’t a step in the right direction – it’s a bone tossed to conservatives to keep us quiet. Just like any baseball club not performing to its potential, conservatives should have the guts to throw the ball back into the field.
When Republicans start ending federal programs, then I’ll be impressed. Underfunding programs isn’t conservative, it’s just half-assed.