GOP Conservatives Propose Spending Cuts

Last week the conservative House Republican Study Committee released its Spending Reduction Act of 2011, which would cut federal spending by $2.5 trillion over the next ten years. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) will introduce it in the Senate.

The vast majority of the savings, $2.3 trillion, would come from freezing non-defense discretionary spending at fiscal 2006 levels over the next ten years. The rest would come from cutting the federal civilian workforce, privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, repealing the state Medicaid FMAP increase, repealing remaining stimulus funds, and immediately reducing non-security discretionary spending to fiscal 2008 levels.

Of the $2.3 trillion over 10 years that would be saved by freezing nondefense discretionary spending at fiscal 2006 levels, only $330 billion in savings are actually specified, or about $33 billion annually. That’s only about 5 percent of nondefense discretionary spending, and nondefense discretionary spending only accounts for about 17 percent of total federal spending.

The RSC targeted an array of small and silly programs such as $17 million in subsidies for the International Fund for Ireland. They would eliminate mohair subsides saving $1 million, but that’s tiny compared to the needed termination of all farm subsidies. And proposing to eliminate “duplicative education programs” is fine, but the Department of Education doesn’t need house cleaning -- it needs to be cleaned out.

The plan does include some good cuts that have been proposed at Downsizing Government:

• Amtrak subsidies
• Community Development Fund
• Department of Commerce business subsidies
• High-speed rail subsidies
• Economic Development Administration
• Some transit subsidies
• Some energy subsidies

However, most of the RSC’s savings are generated by a largely amorphous promise to keep domestic spending flat for years to come at 2006 levels. Unfortunately, this evades the needed national conversation on closing down major agencies and departments.

Another disappointment with the RSC plan is that there are no proposed cuts for the Department of Defense. That could be a major political error as more and more conservatives have been coming to the conclusion that it needs to be downsized. And by failing to include the Pentagon, any chance of support by congressional Democrats is killed.