You Want Budget Cuts, I'll Give You Budget Cuts

President Bush is proposing that we spend $2.57 trillion next year and everybody's bitching that we're not spending enough. USA Today calls the spending plan "austere". The Florida Sun-Sentinal's leftist Washington Bureau reporter reporter put it this way in his lead:

I heard my Senator, Republican Chuck Grassley -- one of those "powerful Republicans" all the papers were talking about -- bitching about the proposed cuts in agriculture subsidies.

But of re-caps that I read, USA Today and the Sun Sentinel did a fair job of summing of the bitching of the Washington politicians and the press, so I'll borrow heavily from their reports in my critique of all the whining. If these people think this budget is "austere", they ain't see nothin' yet. They want "austere", I'll give them "austere".

First of all, someone explain to me what's wrong with spending more money providing for the common defense and giving me a bigger tax cut? From a middle class taxpayer's standpoint, I think these are two damn fine priorities. What's that? You say we can't afford the tax cuts? Well allow me to help. According to the USA Today analysis, individual income tax accounts for $967 billion of the federal government's "revenue" (more accurately described as the money stolen from you and I and our employers out of our paychecks). We could re-coup this amount just by taking a good, hard look at the programs the liberal media and Washington politicians claim we just can't live without. The Sun Sentinel has some wonderful bitches all bullet-pointed out:

Medicaid, which is eating up increasing amounts of the budget in Florida and elsewhere, would get $45 billion less in federal aid over 10 years in an effort to pass along more costs to states.

So Florida is pissing away too much of their state budget on paying for medical care for those who are either incapable or unwilling to pay for it themselves and they just can't do without the $45 billion in federal money Bush wants to cut. I know Iowa is the same way and so is every other state. The solution? Well. I guess the po' folks will just have to get used to paying for their own medical care or perhaps get a decent job that has insurance. Cut'em off. It's not the taxpayer's responsibility to pay for the health care of the irresponsible. There's nothing like the knowledge that the taxpayers won't be there to pay for the messes you make. Problem solved. Sure it'll be a painful fix at first, but a little tough love is what these folks need.

Amtrak, which has an Autotrain terminal in Sanford, would get no federal funding except for commuter rail programs, which would receive $360 million. The total Amtrak cut would be $1.2 billion in 2006.

Boo hoo, Amtrak is slated to get a $1.2 billion cut in their government funding. Fantastic! Let'em fail. It's a poorly run, poorly managed transportation system that is apparently accountable to no one. I don't ask for anyone to subsidize my transportation. I don't expect to have to subsidize anyone's transportation. Completely de-fund this waste of a transportation system and let it fail. In the free market, someone will come along who will be able to run it for a profit. $1.5 billion saved.