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Political Hay
Dracon for President?
Nothing, nothing is as important as the financial health of the United States.
“Draconian” was the way one Democrat described, with surprising accuracy, the budget cuts the Republicans in the House of Representatives passed before the dawn’s early light last Saturday. Dracon, who gave his name to the Democrat’s adjective, was an Athenian legislator in the 7th century B.C. who replaced the rule of lawgivers with the rule of law, an act that to this day rankles believers in a living constitution. Some of Dracon’s laws were harsh. Some of the Republicans’ cuts are also being described as harsh.
The new Republican members of the House did what they had promised they would do when they got to Washington (behavior sometimes referred to as operational consonance): they cut the budget and, with it, bennies for bureaucrats.
When the Republicans had finished their handiwork, Democrats described the results as drastic, double meat ax, death spiral, and, yes, draconian. Republicans called it democratic.
The Republicans voted to cut $61 billion out of the federal budget over the next seven months, taking non-security discretionary spending down to where it was way back in… 2008, a time, for the historically minded, when flowers bloomed, children played, dead people in Chicago voted, and life was, on the whole — if you weren’t a progressive frustrated that you had not yet managed to control… everything — quite good.
The cut in the budget is being called “the largest cut of its kind since World War II.” But the cuts are being measured from President Obama’s Brobdingnagian 2010 spending level and his über-Brobdingnagian, Jonathan Swiftian 2011 budget request, both of them examples of the progressives’ ratchet theory of history: spending that goes up must never, ever, be allowed to come down.
More than a hundred programs will be eliminated. Hundreds more will have their funding reduced. Some of the highest-octane proposals were eliminating funding for the pro-abortion organization Planned Parenthood, cutting off funding for implementing Obamacare, and cutting the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by a third.
Federal bureaucrats, unable to adapt to the spirit of the times, were not amused by the Republicans’ keeping their promises. Nevertheless, the Internal Revenue Service’s announcement that the cuts would adversely affect its operations must have brought a wry smile to a face or two, perhaps even to the face of Treasury Secretary, and chief IRS tax collector, Tim Geithner.
The National Labor Relations Board also said the cuts would have adverse effects. Given the Obama administration’s pro-union activities in Wisconsin, where public employees are protesting like Greeks — but not the Greeks of Dracon’s day — the NLRB’s announcement must have been particularly welcomed by that state’s governor.
Funding for some of President Obama’s White House regulatory “czars” was also cut, but not, unfortunately, funding for Czarbanes-Oxley.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (an organization whose logo might feature a unicorn), described the Republicans’ efforts as “not a thoughtful exercise.” But it is the exercises, thoughtful or otherwise, of the budgeteers of the last several years that have created the current crisis. What Americans want now is less thought and more excising.
Those who believe the country will not easily survive, or survive at all, the cuts made by the Republicans should remember this: on the morning after the Republicans passed welfare reform in 1996, the sun… rose. That reform is now generally agreed to have been a great success. President Clinton had vetoed the reform bill twice, before bowing to public pressure to sign it. Democrats had predicted death, literally, in the streets. All that died was one more piece of the liberal dream: the idea that Americans cannot manage their own lives.
The House Republicans need to make it clear they understand that some of the programs they have cut or killed may well be important, at least to some people, but that nothing, nothing is as important as the financial health of the United States, which it is their solemn duty to protect. If they fail in their duty, they will deserve the blame that historians of democracy in the future will heap upon them, always assuming that in that future there will be historians of democracy.
Dracon, according to the historian Plutarch, was asked why most of the offenses he had listed were punishable by death. Well, he said (to paraphrase), “The lesser crimes deserve death. And for the greater ones, there is, alas, nothing more draconian.”
The Democrat who called the Republicans’ cuts “draconian” was more accurate than he probably realized. The Republicans have condemned to death hundreds of minor programs. Many greater programs still await their sentencing.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (50) | Leave a comment
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 2.22.11 @ 7:15AM
All this whining and moaning over minuscule cuts lets you know that there is a battle ahead. Screw the civility.
Alan Brooks| 2.22.11 @ 6:17PM
"Nothing, nothing is as important as the financial health of the United States."
Not even God. The Gipper knew that, and you knew him.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.22.11 @ 7:41AM
Well, we gotta' start somewhere.
Hopefully, Wisconsin and Texas can lead the way.
Merlin| 2.22.11 @ 7:47AM
Is there anything more irresponsible than spending money you do not have year after year after year after . . . . . . ?
Kenny| 2.22.11 @ 8:23AM
The Democrats are the party of Big
Government and Big Labor. Fact.
Listening to them squeal in Wisconsin and Ohio as programs & government department budgets get chopped is music to the taxpayers ears. Fact.
To the GOP: so great is the fat in government that a meat axe is called for, not a puny scalple. Now get her done.
bee bop| 2.22.11 @ 8:29AM
"Since the days of Pheonicia and probably
even before that ---the illusion of money and
the priest class that officiates it have been the
central trick."
-Alan Watt
(online)
AS we find, still, Americans are unwilling, unable,
or is it terrified beyond words? regarding that
nagging issue of the unconstitutional, illegal,
private and wholly unaacountable 'Federal' Reserve.
OPEN, AUDIT and END the FED ---asap.
-------------ALLL ELSE IS BALK-TALK.
Louis Jenkins| 2.22.11 @ 8:37AM
Call it Draconian, but it is for the survival of the nation. Call it Draconian when the EPA gets a budget cut, but for us it is relief. Planned Parenthood? Let it wither and die. If we are to survive cuts have to be made. Tax dollars do not magically spring up ripe for the ultra-liberals picking, and we're a heap better off without so many depts. Now, don't just get out a meat axe, get two of them. Nay, get out a meat grinder.
conservative Bob| 2.22.11 @ 10:09AM
For all those who so passionately believe in the 'woman’s right to choose' reach deep into your pockets and contribute from your own resources as much as you feel you can afford.
Give until it hurts if you wish.
Planned Parenthood should never have received a dime of tax payer money.
My guess is that those who so fervently believe in a woman’s right to choose will be substantially less generous with their own money than they are with other peoples..
Stammon| 2.22.11 @ 10:36AM
"A woman's right to choose" to pick my pocket is not to be borne. Except for the military and social security I want no other federal programs to pay for.
None, zip, nada, f-'em.
It's my money, and I want to define and restrict it's use.
I think "Tea Party" is a better name than most realize. That little youtube boy saying "tax the rich" to pay the WI teachers; If you tax me more than others, I want a greater say.
Just say'en.
conservative Bob| 2.22.11 @ 11:52AM
Imagine if voting and paying taxes were linked...
I think the definition of need and want would be redefined over night.
Tax payers of the world unite and throw off the shackles and oppression of the dependant class...
Occam's Tool| 2.22.11 @ 3:07PM
Taxation should ONLY be used to raise money for governmental programs; never as a means of social change and control.
Personally, I don't expect SS to be there when I retire in 20 years, so I don't care except for National Defense and Military aid (subset of National defense).
logmank| 2.22.11 @ 8:47AM
We have a federal budget of $3,700 billion. The Republicans proposed cuts of $61 billion. That isn't even a good start.
If it weren't so sad, I'd be laughing. These are "cuts"? They aren't even scratches.
Curly Smith| 2.22.11 @ 9:09AM
"[Welfare reform] is now generally agreed to have been a great success."
Yet the Democrats have campaigned ceaselessly since 1996 to repeal the "unconscionable" reform. And this AS blog post Repealing Welfare Reform? suggests that the 2009 sham-u-lus bill accomplished the repeal. Take a hard look at the Wisconsin thug-o-rama, take another look at the failed policies of the left, and then tell me that the misery and despair that follows in the wake of Democratic Party policy is an "unintended consequence".
Sam Vaughn| 2.22.11 @ 9:16AM
my memory of unions is as a young Teamster. sleeping on a thin mattress over a piece of plywood mounted on cinder blocks I ate rice cakes, ramen noodles and occasionally tuna fish. Trying to work my way through college without accepting any help, that's the way I was raised. I took a job, good pay not doubt but I needed every penny, literally, to pay tuition. I refused to join the Union. Rather than listen, understand and try to persuade me I was "guided" on a trip behind the dumpster. I've hated Unions ever since. They don't exist to "help" the worker they exist for their own power.
John Navratil| 2.23.11 @ 11:01AM
Sam Vaughn,
The lesson you got was comparatively cheap if, no doubt, extremely unpleasant. It's sad that more people haven't received this lesson in one form or another.
The special place in Hell is reserved for your "guides". These thugs are the praetorian guard who protect the generals - not unlike the street thugs of the mafia or the elites which surround every dictator around the world. Of course, they rationalize it as keeping freeloaders out of the guild.
Turnditch| 2.22.11 @ 9:25AM
If a measly 61 billion dollars in proposed spending cuts are labeled "Draconian" by the Democrats, it would be really interesting to see what name they'd come up with for Rand Paul's plan to cut one-half trillion dollars in one year!
Maybe, "Lizzie Bordenian" ?
Brian Mc| 2.22.11 @ 9:30AM
My sigh of relief will be held in reserve for the real cuts. Eliminations of departments and agencies that strangle the taxpayers of this great land under the heading, "For the good of the people, children, education, health, safety, environment, etc."
Mind the borders and maintain civil order. Everything else should have been left to the private sector and free enterprise. Government efforts are a joke compared to what we the people can do on our own and those 'efforts' have always done more harm than good.
A possible good start would be the abolishment of the ATF. How's this for gun control? Commit a felony with a firearm...life imprisonment with no chance of parole. And the individual States are left to regulate their own alcohol and tobacco. I'm open to thoughts counter to this common sense approach to the problems inherent with this department which, as you know, are too numerous for this present thread.
Occam's Tool| 2.22.11 @ 3:26PM
I think I mentioned some things once----first, here are the Cabinet positions and Cabinet equivalent positions according to white house.gov---Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Attorney General.
The following positions have the status of Cabinet-rank:
White House Interim Chief of Staff
Bill Daley
Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Lisa P. Jackson
Office of Management & Budget
Jacob J. Lew, Director
United States Trade Representative
Ambassador Ronald Kirk
United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Ambassador Susan Rice
Council of Economic Advisers
Chairman Austan Goolsbee
Now, here are the changes---no Ambassador should have co-equal cabinet rank to the Sec State, for example. No head of a non-cabinet agency should have Cabinet rank. So, here are the changes:
Agriculture should be eliminated, and its duties put under Interior. Commerce---gone. Education---gone. Education---Gone. HHS---gone. Homeland Security---gone (hasn't improved communication between departments---therefore, useless), HUD---gone. Labor---gone. Transportation---gone. Veteran's Affairs---gone.
That would leave the Attorney General (Homeland Security functions should be under his office---I know it's Holder now, but bear with me structurally), Defense, State, Interior, Treasury.
Of the others that have Cabinet rank---Chief of Staff should continue. Otherwise, no.
That would leave a Cabinet of 6 people. It would save infinite bureaucratic time and redundancy. It is possible that some functions, like, say, for giggles---the EPA---would continue. But it DOES NOT deserve routine cabinet rank.
The UN does not deserve Cabinet rank, and our current ambassador, who is the least distinguished person to ever hold the chair, is the least among them.
John Navratil| 2.23.11 @ 11:08AM
I'm guessing you meant to say Education -- gone, then Energy -- gone.
Otherwise, I couldn't agree more.
Richard Baker| 2.22.11 @ 9:45AM
Let the battle begin. As a taxpayer and citizen of this country, I'm fed up with any Party, group, or organization thinking that the "sweat of my brow" is rightfully theirs as if this were the normal course of events. Get out of my pocket and get out of my life!
conservative Bob| 2.22.11 @ 10:15AM
It is slavery pure and simple. I am forced at gun point or threat of jail to 'contribute' so that moeny can flow pay for benefits to union thugs to keep democrats in power.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.22.11 @ 9:46AM
C'mon guys,
think a minute before you start grumbling again.
Elected Congressmen can only do so much in these totally polarized days.
Most of our new Congress critters were elected on thin thin margins. To stay in office they cannot throw away those "marginal" votes.
I have stated here in a lot of different ways: the emerging tidal wave is going to have to begin in the several States.
That has already begun, last November in the Governorships and legislatures, with the lawsuits placed in federal courts, and now with immigration laws, and public-employee roll-backs.
Texas has never allowed teacher unions. Now we have to go after city government workers. Our problem thyere of course is the same as Detroit, and Chicago. As the middle classes have moved to the burbs, the voters within the city-limits have become very "blue".
Heh, now many of our corporations are moving to the burbs to avoid the taxes and fees...and the cities are losing their tax base.....oops.
This has got to be a "bottom-up" tidal wave just like actual tidal waves are begun on the ocean floor.
Brian Mc| 2.22.11 @ 10:02AM
Ken,
The issue of the votes you mentioned as being marginal must come down to education, or the lack of it. With the state of the education system being what it is today, do we even stand a thread of a chance?
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.22.11 @ 10:50AM
Brian
Oh, yes I do. In fact we will win the inevitable victory, but MAN, it is going to be a painful surgery.
The communists, (pardon the shorthand), have kicked the bitter "pill" down the road trying to use debt to lock everyone in.
Once an individual's personal ox gets gored though, he/she tends to become aware of the "horns of the dilemma" very quickly.
I have been thinking and writing furiously for over a year now trying to peer across the "event horizon". Hopefully the final product will be out in March.
John Navratil| 2.23.11 @ 11:17AM
Ken,
I've heard is stated elsewhere that Texas has no teachers unions, but I suspect that will come as a surprise to Gayle Fallon, head of the Houston Federation of Teachers since 1983. It is the largest union in Harris County and is associated with Texas AFT and by extension AFT (American Federation of Teachers).
Immortal 600| 2.22.11 @ 9:50AM
Great article.....one small bone to pick......the ancient Greek was Draco, not Dracon
Al Adab| 2.22.11 @ 9:56AM
This is just the beginning as the States and Feds begin to reign in the overspending, overpromising past and restore some sense to our fiscal universe. This scenario will play out many times over before we get to the goal. Let us hope that the "functionalists" those who think the world cannot turn without their efforts, as well as those too long on the dole, do not take violent action to defend their "entitlements". No one is entitles to live off the labor or earnings of others. That will be a hard lesson for all too many to learn.
conservative Bob| 2.22.11 @ 10:18AM
Al Adab a resort to violence would be a serious miscalculation on their part.
Al Adab| 2.22.11 @ 12:12PM
Con Bob: I couldn't agree more, but remember Rodney King and Watts, Detroit, Newark etc.? Civilization is a fragile thing and the barbarians lie just beneath the surface. The Left may fear the TEA Party, but I fear the reaction of the parasites.
lmn| 2.22.11 @ 9:57AM
More than 61 billion could be saved just by elimiating farm subsidies, but those buy republicans votes so they won't be touched.
Stammon| 2.22.11 @ 10:53AM
Bullpucky.
I am a farmer and you live off my back. The goverment in it's wisdom has seen that farmers need cheap loans and price supports to survive. You don't like it, don't like cheap food, give me examples we can discuss. Oh and that Pigford thing; that's not a farm subsidy, that's "Reparations".
http://www.blackfarmers.org/news.html
I was a tobacco farmer until the libs killed the "tobacco subsidy". That's the subsidy of $1.00 per pound you all screamed about. That dollar ran the price support program so farmers got a decent price for their tobacco, and so big tobacco didn't starve them out of their farms like they did in 1906. And that subsidy was paid for by the $16 tax on every pound I grew.
You lib city folk do not know anything about what it takes to fill your table. Go work on an American Farm and learn something.
Stammon| 2.22.11 @ 11:00AM
Oh yeah;
That $1.85 I got per pound in 1999, is now down to 57 cents. All you smart asses did was to send tobacco farming over to the Philippines. The only american tobacco farms left use mexican labor and grow hundreds of acres, I grew 3.
Your kitchen table is filled on the back of government loans and cheap mexican labor. Eat hearty. All civilization lives on 6" of topsoil.
lmn| 2.22.11 @ 12:00PM
No I don't want cheap food since I have to pay for it out of taxes anyway. I want to decide how much I spend on corn, soybeans, or tobacco not have that dictated to me by the governmetn. Farmers want more money charge higher prices, don't extract it from my wallet using taxes.
http://www.downsizinggovernmen...../subsidies
lmn| 2.22.11 @ 12:10PM
And I don't smoke so why should I be paying to keep a tobacco farmer in buisness?
idalily| 2.22.11 @ 3:50PM
True that.
JKS| 2.22.11 @ 2:29PM
Simple fact: less than 1% of this country's population feed all of us. I agree in theory that all subsidies should be discontinued. However, the farm subsidy should remain until the government quits using American Agriculture as an international bargaining chip.
Also, these boondoggle enterprises like ethanol should be stopped. Subsidies for any crop based fuel need to end now. There should only be subsidies for crops we consume.
davelnaf| 2.22.11 @ 10:08AM
When Democrats are in power it’s their way or the highway. But when Republicans return to power dems’ outrage knows no bounds when the former actually tries to keep their campaign promises. Is dem posturing just for political advantage or does it reflect something else? After seeing it enough times you have to at least assume that it’s not all about politics or about an ever evolving political philosophy. Maybe the right word is pathology.
Walking Horse| 2.22.11 @ 11:12AM
Another key thing about Draco, from Wikipedia, regarding the written Constitution he instituted:
"Instead of oral laws known to a special class, arbitrarily applied and interpreted, all laws were written, thus made known to all literate citizens."
Put another way, the whole notion of a "Living Constitution" is a regression to dictatorial rule by a barbaric elite. How else to explain unwritten "penumbras"?
cicero| 2.22.11 @ 12:27PM
$61 billion - what a joke. From what has been reported in recent days, there is still $450 billion of unspent TARP 2 money, and $703 billion in previously appropriated but unspent money sitting around. The pols in Wahsington appropriate the money faster than the beaurocrats can spend it. Some of it has been sitting around unspent for 20 years. Just pass a bill unspending it. That would be a good start.
John Navratil| 2.23.11 @ 11:21AM
Can't touch that money! It's waiting for the 2012 election.
Timely Renewed | 2.22.11 @ 2:18PM
Spending cuts are good and more would be better, but that is a retail solution to a wholesale problem. The House needs to address a deeper issue. Republican Congresses since the end of World War II have all failed in one significant respect, a failure which has allowed the continued growth of federal government overreach. This is their failure to reverse the New Deal Supreme Court's elimination of the Constitution's restraints on federal power. The original constitutional meanings have been so misconstrued and abused by over 70 years of progressive control of the Supreme Court and other branches of the federal government that simple legislative action is not enough. We need to promote amendments to the Constitution to restore its original meaning and structure and lock in this moment of constitutionalist resurgence. Only this will permanently constrain future federal overreach of the sort rejected by the people last November. See http://www.timelyrenewed.com
Who Knows?| 2.22.11 @ 6:59PM
There is a truth-telling letter to the editor in today's WSJ.
The writer clears the obfuscation wrought by words like "mandatory" and "discretionary", when it comes to spending.
EVERY dollar that is approved for spending is ABSOLUTELY chosen, since no previous congress can bind a FUTURE one.
The Senate and the House should open every day's proceedings with the affirmation that this is TRUE!
Therefore, since the political system BELIEVES the big lies about spending that can't be cut, let alone stopped totally, while we are "happy" to finally be facing up to the inevitable problems about runaway spending, we must gird our loins, and realize----
YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET!
The American taxpayers resemble Roberto Duran, after he'd been fighting his best, and reached his limit, knowing he just couldn't win---
NO MAS!
Leo W| 2.23.11 @ 5:15AM
It isn't enough. If Paul's suggested cuts were implemented, it wouldn't be enough. No matter how deeply we cut, politicians still have the option to bring it all back.
We need additional brakes on congressional power, laws to limit the discretion of politicians in what they may spend my money on and how much may be spent to administer things. Limiting the UMMC with the same 80% medical loss mandate that Obamacare imposes on private insurers is an obvious place to start, and other, similar limits need to be imposed on the government across the board.
Spending isn't the only problem. Making the government reverse spending trends this year only wipes the blood off the wound, which is their ability to do this stuff in the first place, and leaves them the option to bring it all back in the next election cycle.
chris haynes| 2.23.11 @ 3:35PM
Bring back the Governator.
Arnold Schwartznegger.
Look at California. Its Finances: A-Okay
Thanks to a No Nonsense Republican governor, who called a truce on social issues, to save us from a financial catastrophe.
Schwartznegger: Nothing succeeds like success.
Or is it, nothing exceeds like excess. Whatever.
John Navratil| 2.23.11 @ 3:51PM
Yes, unfortunately not everyone with an (R) behind the name is a conservative. While you are toasting Schwarzenegger, drink a little sip for Hagel, Specter, Snowe, Collins, and, increasingly Lindsey Graham, as well. Scott Brown never claimed to be a conservative, so no toast for him, I suppose.
Now - Pelosi and Reid!! There is a pair of real fiscal conservatives? Thank heaven we have had them and the steady hands of Frank and Dodd and Durbin and Feingold to really keep the books in order -- and with the social issues thrown into the bargain at no extra charge. Ain't America great?
Kenneth Manning| 2.23.11 @ 6:15PM
I think his name was Draco (no "n"). Around 617 BC, he set forth written laws to be heeded by all. The penalty for even minor offenses was death. Hence, the adjective, draconian.
Ken Hill | 3.6.11 @ 6:11PM
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