Budget squawks

As part of the GOP’s campaign "Pledge to America" last fall, the incoming Republican majority in the House promised to roll back federal spending to 2008 levels, a move which could involve cutting as much as $84 billion from nine appropriations bills — cuts that would average 18 percent below President Obama’s budget recommendations for 2011.

And they have the votes to do it — though it’s doubtful the Senate, where Democrats are in charge — would go along. (One group, the Republican Study Committee, would go further, slashing spending by $2.5 trillion over the decade.)

But even if Republicans take the scissors to only $1 of every $6 spent by agencies like the IRS, the FBI, NASA and the National Park Service, according to the Associated Press, "Federal layoffs would be unavoidable, the White House warns."

In fact, such numbers only indicate how ridiculously the federal government has continued to grow over the past three years, even as private-sector Americans suffered through a recession which has left storefronts vacant across the land.

If spending is rolled back, "Low-income students may get smaller grants and the newly disabled might have to wait longer for their benefits," reports The AP.

"A return to 2008 levels would mean significant cuts for lots of programs favored by Republicans, including an 8 percent cut to NASA, a 16 percent cut for the FBI and a 13 percent cut in the operating budget of the national parks," The AP warns. And, "There are other political land mines," including "big cuts looming for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, which provides home heating subsidies to the poor."

If anything is proven by the alarmist statistics now churning forth, about all the millions of "beneficiaries" who will be harmed by these adjustments, it’s just how successful supporters of big government have been in creating "programs" supposedly tailored to the limited needs of small groups of sufferers, and then promptly expanding their "client base" until there’s no one in America who can’t be "harmed" by any attempt to roll back federal spending before it bankrupts us.

In truth, a cutback to 2008 levels is a modest goal.