Nancy’s Cupboard May be Bare, But There are Certainly Bats in Her Belfry

On Sunday, September 25, when asked by host Candy Crowley about why President Obama and House and Senate Democrats are so utterly opposed to negotiating over the debt ceiling by exploring additional deficit reduction and spending cuts (as almost every previous president has), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared on CNN’s Sunday show State of the Union that “the cupboard is bare…there’s no more cuts to make.”

This shocking quote was reminiscent of something former House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas) said in 2005; Delay claimed that there was “no fat” left to cut in the federal budget and agreed with the assessment that the government was running at peak efficiency, preening that the GOP majority had “pared it down pretty good.”  Hardly. 

In 2005, according to the Office of Management and Budget, spending was at $2.5 trillion and the deficit was at $318 billion.  At the time, the general public, and the GOP base in particular, was upset with Republicans over what it viewed as its overspending.  Little did the public know what it was in for when it came to government profligacy.  The GOP lost its majority status shortly thereafter to Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats.

The CBO noted in its annual report, “Long-Term Budget Outlook,” that “between 2009 and 2012, the federal government during that four-year timeframe recorded the largest budget deficits relative to the size of the economy since 1946, causing federal debt to soar.  Today, federal debt held by the public is about 73 percent of the economy’s annual output, or gross domestic product (GDP).  That percentage is higher than at any point in U.S. history, except for a brief period around World War II, and it is twice the percentage at the end of 2007.”

Today government spending is at $3.8 trillion and we have a $901 billion deficit, but there is little doubt that if Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House again, Congress would go on another huge spending spree along with President Obama.  Rep. Pelosi went on to say during her CNN interview, “We all want to reduce the deficit…put everything on the table, review it, but you cannot have any more cuts just for the sake of cuts.  Right now you’re taking trophies.”

Trophies?  There is no way Congress can find even a little waste, fraud, and abuse in the government that could be cut out of a $3.8 trillion budget?

Of course, most people outside of the Washington, D.C. bubble know this isn’t true. 

Below are some sources that offer suggestions on budget cuts.  Rep. Pelosi, President Obama, and others who believe that the government can’t find any more spending cuts should take a look at them.

• The Congressional Budget Office’s “Choices for Deficit Reduction” provides options for budget cuts that would save millions of dollars.
• The Office of Management and Budget’s Cuts, Consolidations, and Savings. 
• Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has furnished taxpayers with several studies that look at duplicative programs, government waste, sensible sequester cuts, and a compendium (Back to Black) of budget-cutting options gleaned from several sources, including government agencies.

For years, Citizens Against Government Waste has also compiled ideas on possible budget cuts in their annual publication “Prime Cuts,” a summary of which can be found here.  The most recent edition contains 557 recommendations that would save taxpayers $580.6 billion in the first year and $1.8 trillion over five years”

We are now in the middle of a partial government shutdown, battling over not just what can be done to mitigate the potentially devastating impact of The Patient Protection and Care Act, but even more importantly, whether to raise the debt ceiling (and by how much) and, concomitantly, how to fund the government and slow the growth of out-of-control government spending. 

It is critically important to preserve the current spending caps.  The sequester cuts have been successful in reducing the deficit and, notwithstanding Rep. Pelosi’s ill-informed comments to the contrary, more can and should be done.  CAGW President Tom Schatz, wrote about keeping current spending cuts in place in an op-ed published in Roll Call. 

Back in 2006, Senator Obama argued that raising the debt ceiling without addressing the debt would be a sign of leadership failure.  CAGW agrees and hope President Obama will negotiate with Congress to find more ways to reduce spending in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.