Krugman: Sacred Cows

[ProSense]

Sacred Cows

I was looking at Republican plans to cut spending without touching Social Security, Medicare, defense, etc., and ran across this:

Cutting non-security discretionary funds by $100 billion means a 21% annual reduction in the part of the budget that includes funding for education, health and human services and housing and urban development, among other things, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank.

In other words, the sacred cows of domestic Democratic policy.

Ahem. Let’s look at the budget for the biggest of these agencies (pdf), HHS. About half of that budget goes for the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. I didn’t think that preventing epidemics was a “Democratic” sacred cow; and despite the anti-science tendencies of the right, I don’t think they’re against medical research in general.

The point is that even within non-security discretionary spending, there’s not a whole lot that you can characterize as wimpy liberal do-goodism. To get anything like the kind of spending cuts the GOP proposes — let alone the much larger cuts that would be needed to do anything serious about budget deficits — you’d have do a lot more than annoy liberals.

And you know what? It’s not going to happen.

It's going to be interesting to watch Republicans maneuver as they attempt to carry out their threats.

[Hello_Kitty]

1. They consider any non-military and non-police spending to be commie welfare

This attitude has been fully internalized by conservative voters. I've met people here in AZ who seem to believe that 95% of government spending goes to welfare recipients and government employees who administer the welfare programs.

[ProSense]

2. "people here in AZ who seem to believe that 95% of government spending goes to welfare recipients"

Only education can cure ignorance, but not much can be done about willful ignorance.

Krugman on government spending

[Hello_Kitty]

3. Oh, they're the first to complain about the potholes on their streets

Or the fact that they have to pay for their kids' extracurricular activities. I'm like, what did you think was going to happen when they "got the gubmint out of your life?"

[Vinnie From Indy]

4. Rush Limbaugh and hate radio are the cause of the ignorance

They spew thousands of hours of lies each week from coast to coast.