For most of my life, every time anyone in Washington proposed a cut in federal spending, he or she was attacked as heartless, a person who would inflict hardships on the poor who depend on the government. It is a predictable part of political discourse, but it is now being raised to a ridiculous level. A good example comes from an interview given yesterday by one of my favorites, Paul Krugman. Here is what he had to say about spending cuts:
"Romney will cut spending, which means basically the poor. So in the very short run we're going to be taking money away from the people who would actually spend the money and give it to corporations who will sit on the cash because they don't see good reasons to invest in the economy."
Krugman then says that Romney will drive the economy into recession.
Wow! Krugman truly is a moron. In 2008, the federal government spent 2.9 trillion dollars. After three years under Obama and the Obamacrats, the federal government in 2011 spent $3.8 trillion. That's right, in three years total federal spending has risen by 900 billion dollars or about 31%. That increase is actually bigger than it looks because in 2008 the USA spent heavily on the war in Iraq which was essentially over in 2011. The truth is that domestic spending by the feds went up by about one trillion dollars in three years. So, Krugman is actually arguing that if one cuts any of this enormous new federal spending, it is coming out of the hide of the poor. This is utter nonsense.
We cannot have a rational discussion of the federal budget in America if the Democrats argue each time that any reduction no matter how small and no matter from what base will be an attack on the poor. That is just demogoguery. For example, were the federal subsidy to PBS to be cut, we would save half a billion dollars. Who are the poor people who would be hurt by that? What if some of the billions shoveled to Obama's donors in the "green" energy field were stopped. That could save about $30 billion per year. Are the millionaires and billionaires who get these grants suddenly the poor? Or do they qualify as poor because they gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Obama? What if support for the Nevada cowboy poetry festival were stopped. That is a favorite of Harry Reid who protects it each year in the budget. Would we be starving the poor in Nevada of culture or would it just mean that one of Reid's contributors would have to fund that festival instead of the government?
The list could go on for page after page. Much of what the federal government spends is not for the poor, but the Obamacrats like Krugman will not discuss that. In truth, much of what gets spent is to support Democrat interest groups, a subject that someone like Krugman could not admit. Nevertheless, with the country going broke, we have no choice but to do something about it.
While we are discussing this, we should also consider all of the help that is actually intended to help the poor. Why don't we actually consider whether or not it does indeed help. Democrats always assume that more money thrown at a problem by the government will help solve that problem. That is just not true. Look at Head Start. That program has been funded with hundreds of billions of dollars since it was started in the 1960's. The theory behind the program is that by starting kids in education earlier, they get a head start, an easier path to learning, a road which is more likely to lead them to high school graduation and a successful adult life. We now have fifty years of data to evaluate the results of that program, and the uniform answer from the data is that the program DOES NOT WORK. Still, no one is out there suggesting that the program be cancelled. Indeed, were a politician to come forward and argue to stop funding the program, he would be set upon by a horde of Democrats arguing that he wanted to hurt poor children. The media would inevitably cover the attack and then some Hollywood libs would mount an attack as well. It would not matter whether or not Head Start actually works; liberal dogma says that it must, so no one can question the dogma without being hit by the liberal inquisition.
America has to be told that spending is not the same as helping the poor or even caring about the poor. I like to think that all of us care about the poor. Conservatives, however, want to find ways to let the poor find more prosperous lives. Dribbling funds to the poor in traditional liberal programs is not the way to help. It drains funds from the economy creating more problems and it does essentially nothing to help the poor improve their lives in the long run. It is trickle up poverty.
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