Republicans Aren't Serious About Budget Cutting

It should have been obvious to even the dumbest voter that the Republicans weren't serious about their campaign promise to cut the federal deficit when they forced the acceptance of a massive tax cut for the rich that increased the deficit by nearly 50% (an additional $400 billion a year at least). The truth is that they don't really care about cutting the deficit -- only cutting programs they have never liked (which is why you hear so much about cutting Social Security, which has absolutely nothing to do with the budget deficit).

I posted a list yesterday of programs the Republicans would like to abolish. The excuse they use is that they are trying to balance the budget. These programs though would cut much less than even a quarter of the deficit created by their tax cut for the rich, and would do little toward actually balancing the budget. These are just programs they don't like.

There are programs they should be looking at where real cuts could be made, but they aren't doing that. American corporations are making record profits, and could well afford to do without many subsidies and tax breaks they currently enjoy. But cutting money given to the rich is not something Republicans are interested in doing. The same goes for the giant oil and gas companies who are making record profits of billions of dollars, but Republicans talk of giving them more government subsidies, not less.

Then we come to the biggest expenditure in the budget -- the Defense Department. That department is asking for a 2012 budget of $553 billion (and when the costs of the two wars being waged are figured in the figure balloons to about $750 billion). I'm simply not buying the argument that billions of dollars couldn't be cut from that budget -- starting with the end to the two useless wars. But no one is seriously talking about cuts to the defense budget (even though it is far larger than that of most other countries -- all added together).

In fact, the Republicans won't even consider a rather modest cut to the Defense budget. I listened yesterday to Republicans in the House defend spending nearly $500 million for a second engine for the F-35 fighter. They claimed the second engine would "create competition" which would save money. That claim is ridiculous. There is no competition in defense contracts -- only overruns. Making their desire to spend this 1/2 billion dollars even sillier is the fact that the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Department, and both President Obama and former President Bush have said the second engine is not needed, not wanted, and would just unnecessarily complicate things for the military.

But the money for the second engine would go to companies in Republican congressional districts (especially the district of Speaker Boehner). That's the real point. They are trying to protect the profits of their rich buddies -- not spend money necessary for the national defense. If they were serious about cutting the deficit, then this unnecessary and unwanted second engine would be cut from the budget. Since it's not, we have to assume that protecting corporate profits is more important that cutting the deficit -- even if those corporate profits must be protected with taxpayer dollars.

Republicans are not really interested in cutting the budget. They have been preaching budget cuts for many years, but every time they get in power the deficits they create are larger than any created by Democrats. All you have to do is look at the deficits created by George Bush and Ronald Reagan to know this. Both of them ballooned the deficit and the national debt (while talking about cutting government -- which they never got around to doing).

The truth is that the Republicans are the biggest spenders. They just don't do any of that spending to help ordinary Americans -- the people that actually need government help. No, that's where they want to cut -- in the programs that help Americans that are poor, sick, out-of-work, elderly, or children in need of education. They only want to help the rich and powerful, and they're willing to vastly increase the deficit to give money to them.

I know they Republicans are saying they want to cut the deficit and balance the budget. They are lying. They just want to get rid of the programs they never liked -- the programs ordinary Americans depend on. Doing that will give them more money they can then give to the rich.