(This is the second Blog on the theme, Elections Matter, the first one having been posted on September 25 entitled “Not All Politicians Are Alike.”)
You’ve heard it said, “Budgets are moral documents.” The reason they are is because they reflect priorities. They reveal what a person or a government values.
Our nation’s budget, then, is a moral statement, which is why what is currently going on at the federal and state levels of government is a moral disgrace.
Indiscriminate budget cutting, or, more graphically, taking an ax to the budget, is the name of the game being played. The Budget Sequester has been the most hideous form of this mindless approach to the budget, but irresponsible cutting has been and will continue to happen across the board because of political polarities.
This is a very dangerous situation in our nation, and nothing underscores this point more than the Ebola threat we are facing.
According to Dr. Irwin Redlener, Director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, one of the victims of indiscriminate budget cuts has been the hospital preparedness program that is funded out of the federal Health and Human Services Department. Over the last few years this program has been cut by over $500 million, or around a 35% reduction from previous funding levels.
These cuts have had the domino effect of our nation losing 40,000 public health employees across the nation. In addition, hospitals don’t have the money to practice emergency protocols for threats like Ebola. Dr. Redlener says such practice might have avoided the mistakes made when the Ebola patient in Texas first went to the hospital.
These are examples of the very serious consequences indiscriminate, careless cuts to the federal budget have (and, as a by-product, state budgets as well).
“But we can’t keep spending money we don’t have.” people say. Of course we can because “pay as you go” is an impossible way to run a government, a business, or a home.
“Yea,” someone retorts, “and that is why we are in a deficit crisis.”
That’s what we were hearing two years ago. But NOT anymore. No one is talking about the federal deficit, for good reason. It’s been cut almost in half.
You know how? By doing what responsible economists said at the time needed to be done. The Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire and the focus was put on job creation that has increased tax revenues.
And the sky didn’t fall!
But budget hawks still won’t listen to reason so they continue to cry, “Cut, Cut, Cut.”
There’s a old adage, “A penny wise and a dollar foolish.” That pretty much sums up where the budget hawks have gotten us as a nation.
So beware! The next time you hear a politician say, “Washington doesn’t have a revenue problem, Washington has a spending problem,” he or she will be telling you the truth, only it won’t be the kind of truth they want you to believe.
The spending problem we have is making budget decisions based on ideology rather than good sense.
If this continues, we may one day discover that we have gotten some things we didn’t pay for, one of which will be a disease control system that cannot stop a medical pandemic.
linnposts.com 
And people still vote for these ideological budget cutters! I think an over abundance of uninformed, uneducated, ideological voters is one of the fundamental problems in America today.
On both sides of the Ocean, there’s one item of state spending that there’s a conspiracy of silence about, namely defence spending. How long has it been since Parliament in my country and Congress in your nation tood a good look at how our money has been spent in the name of the false God of military security? Of what use are the two outsized aircraft carriers that we’re building here in the UK, against a threatened outbreak of Ebola?
What both our countries need in our respective law making bodies is a crusader of the calibre of William Proxmire.
Nigel, I haven’t heard William Proxmire’s name in a very long time, and from the other side of the Pond no less. I’m afraid we don’t have Senators like him anymore. Bernie Sanders may be the exception.
Nigel,
I’m totally in sync with your thinking on this issue. But I think, in America, the false God of military security is going to be VERY difficult to rein in. On your side of the ocean: hey, every country needs at least a couple aircraft carriers, I think! It doesn’t make any difference what you think you are going to do with them, you NEED them!
It’s called military sibling rivalry, Wally. You got a new tank so I get a new ship. And the permissive parent is the Congress.
I think that permissive parent is doing a lousy parenting job. I think they don’t hardly make people like Bill Proxmire anymore, except for Bernie Sanders, who is very high of my list of good guys in this country.
when you talk of a budget deficit, you are speaking of one year – what was our total deficit in Jan of 09 and what is it now?? very simple question.
Well, all the military spending in the world is not worth a tinker’s dam if you have a president who is afraid to use any of it to its full capacity. The air war is NOT working, all the predictions told us that it would not. Oh, gee, Panetta, Gates, wonder what they have to say about o, read the writings.
Very simple answer:
FYI From Bloomberg news today: The budget deficit in 2009 was $1.7T. The Treasury Dept reported this year’s deficit as of this Sept is $36.9B, the lowest in 14 years, and way down from 2009. As of Sept, revenue increased by 16% to $215.8B from $186B in March 2013.. Spending as of Sept is $252.7B, is down 13.8% from the same point in 2013.
Do you really want to be at full scale war for several more years? I don’t
Thanks for your response, Wally. But I suspect it won’t matter much.
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If the auditors were to be called in to the defence contractors, there’s no telling what might come to light. I can recall that there was a case back in the ’80s involving General Dynamics, purveyor of nuclear submarines to the US Navy. It transpired that the US taxpayer was actually paying to board the Company Chairman’s dog!
Military hawks and budget hawks are just alike. Neither learns from past mistakes.
Wally, no, I do not want to be in a war either but that is sometimes not our choice. WW II for example. o was so intent on getting totally out of Iraq that he left NO forces there – so that he could say he ended the war. gates and panetta were against totally pulling out and predicted the results. now we have the results with the rise of isis.
by the way, on the debt issue, I continue to stress not the yearly deficit, which often fluctuates and is expected to go up tremendously over the next decade, but the total debt – which o has nearly doubled. might want to check out:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/706025967449751-federal-debt-7t-under-obama
When President Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the total federal debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08. As of the close of business on July 30, 2014, it had risen to $17,618,599,653,160.19–up $6,991,722,604,247.11 from Obama’s first inauguration day.
Might want to go back and check out his speech in the senate in which he blasted Bush for wanting to raise the debt ceiling by a trillion or 2.
I will respond to your claims, simply because they have no basis in facts.
Re troops left in Iraq: Fact: President Bush signed the Status of Forces agreement in 2008 that stipulated “..U.S. combat forces would withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, and all U.S. forces will be completely out of Iraq by December 31, 2011.”
Fact: President Obama tried to re-negotiate this agreement, but according to Time Magazine and the New York Times in October, 2011, “the Iraqi government refused to negotiate a viable SOFA with the U.S. despite Obama’s efforts to maintain a military presence.”
Re National Debt: Fact: According to Factcheck.com, it is simply not true, “as claimed in a graphic widely circulated by email and in social media postings — that the debt has increased more under Obama than under all previous 43 presidents combined. In fact, as of Jan. 31, 2012, the rise under Obama had yet to surpass the rise under his predecessor, George W. Bush. The figures in that graphic are pure fabrications, as anyone can easily confirm by plugging Obama’s inauguration date — Jan. 20, 2009 — in the Treasury Department’s handy “debt to the penny ” website. That shows the nation’s total debt stood at $10.6 trillion on the day Obama took office (not $6.3 trillion), and it had increased to nearly $15.4 trillion by the end of January 2012 — a rise of more than $4.7 trillion in just over three years (not $6.5 trillion).”
One would think you would consider reducing the yearly deficit a good thing, but since it goes against your prejudice against President Obama, you resort to propaganda re the national debt and troop levels.
speaking of looking at facts, you are quoting figures for Jan of 12. he had only been in office for 3 years, I believe that figure is closing in on 6 now. as per your web site suggested, the debt on july of this year was 17 T. an you speak of fix news, you may be correct, they do in fact need to fix all the propaganda that the liberal press spews out. by the way, Happy Birthday Fox News, today oct 7, back in 1996 it began!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think WWII and today are quite difference circumstances.
Wally, I see absolutely no difference except the form of the war. little o cannot even call it a war, will not use the term radical islam. we have a radical enemy, radical Islam, and they will go to any lengths to kill westerners and to establish jihad. have you kept count of the beheadings recently, one is this country that is called workplace violence – bull dung – in WW II we had a president who believed in fighting the offensive war, not the defensive one, and he ordered the Doolittle raid on Tokyo, which put Japan on the defensive since they did not know what might happen and it took a tremendous amount of their resources away from their offensive to put on a defense. He kicked butt, and we need to do the same today. little o established a red line in Syria which meant nothing because he did NOT back it up. he is such a community organizer that he has not even fired anyone – he gets his news from the tv, just like all of us – those are his words, not mine.
Steve, your calling the President “little o” is too racist and disrespectful for me to continue to allow your responses to be posted. Clean up your act or get your own post.
Stephen,
Your hatred of the President is showing
Ok, Jan, I it was not appropriate and I will not do it again, he will be referred to as Obama – but contrary to your assertion, it was NOT racist – because I would not mind seeing as president one bit 1 – Dr. Ben Carson, 2 – Dr. Condalisa Rice, or 3 – Ret. Gen Colin Powell. I have nothing against Obama, as a person, at all, but I do disagree totally with many of his actions as our president. I will continue, as long as you allow, to point out facts of our nation and of his actions.
That works.
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good.