David Weigel at WaPo’s “Right Now” blog says Republicans came up with the idea after Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, lost his bid for a fourth term when tea baggers at the Utah GOP state convention drubbed him out of office because he voted for George Bush’s bailout bill:
– Democratic Party spokesman
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House whip who backed the bailout, shows how it’s done — a new campaign called YouCut … In an intro video, Cantor promises an “an up-or-down vote” from House Republicans on whatever item wins the poll. It’s an achievable goal, because the items are not as huge as the demands of the tea parties. On the chopping block: $1 million in HUD grants for dissertations, the $260 million presidential election fund, $600 million in “taxpayer subsidized union activities,” $2.5 billion in welfare, and $2.6 billion in Community Development Block Grants for the less-than-poor.
Add all the savings together and you’d skim 0.16 percent off of the $3.8 trillion FY2011 budget. It’s a start, though.
UPDATE: Democrats respond via Doug Thornell, a spokesman for Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
In the last year and a half, House Republicans have attempted more makeovers than Heidi Montag and Joan Rivers combined. The GOP turned record surpluses into deficits, doubled the debt then left us to clean up an economic disaster almost as bad as the Great Depression. Now they go around trashing the Recovery Act on Fox, but more than 70 percent of them have taken credit for it for back home because they know it is working and creating jobs. The GOP’s credibility on spending is running on empty.
Steve Benen at Washington Monthly is not impressed:
The list of possible areas for cuts is pretty underwhelming. For example, participants in this little exercise can eliminate the Presidential Election Fund, saving $260 million over five years — but in the process making national candidates more dependent on outside fundraising. Folks can also vote to eliminate $200,000 a year in HUD grants for doctoral research on housing policy.
What’s especially interesting, though, is that all of the proposals don’t amount to much given the larger budget picture. Merit aside, if officials were to scrap every penny of the spending on Cantor’s list, it would save taxpayers about $1.1 billion a year.
Obviously, for regular American households, $1.1 billion is an enormous amount of money. But when we’re talking about a federal budget that’s nearly $4 trillion, Cantor’s money saving ideas, taken together, represent far less than 1% of the total.
In contrast, Democratic plans on health care, student loans, and energy policy would produce significant budget savings — but generated apoplectic opposition from Cantor and other Republicans.
I guess this isn’t too big a surprise. When President Obama reached out to congressional Republicans last summer, urging them to put together a list of spending cuts they’d like to see, the GOP caucus came up with $23 billion in proposed cuts over five years — far less than the White House plan to reduce spending over the same period.
Cantor would obviously like to position Republicans as the party of fiscal responsibility and discipline, but I’m hard pressed to imagine why anyone would take this seriously.
Even a guy at Red State, an online GOP propaganda aggregator gets snarky:
[A]ny budget cuts proposed by the GOP at this time will instantly be shot down by the House majority. So it’s an exercise that really does nothing and waste congressional GOP leaders’ time. It’s a PR gimmick. How stupid do they think we are?
We’d say Republican House leaders have every reason — and plenty of evidence — to assume that their voters are pretty stupid, Red Stater.
The link won’t let me make my own suggestion – some kind of maintenance message pops up, or is the House website overwhelmed with good ideas? I was going to suggest cutting military bases in his district.
It’s a great idea! Long gone is anyones thinking In Washington that a penny saved is a penny earned. Why are the dem’s so quick to point out how little the savings would be? What are they scared of? Losing control and giving the American people what WE want? Stop the pork even if it means one dollar at a time, not to mention a billion here a billion there! Tired of the current blame game with little results, more spendingacquaint a significantly reduced quality of life; not to mention future generations. I guess you will leave their fate up to the Chinese financiers or anyone that cares to break our laws crossing our borders.
What an asinine idea. A web site where people can offer some contribution to the publc discourse, and have thier views counted. I think this may border on sedition and is certinally undemocratic. We all should know that the people in power in D.C. know what they are doing and are certinally smarter than your average tea bagger. Thank heavens the people elected public servants who are much smarter than they are and understand whats right for the people even if they don’t.
But, coca silver, Cantor’s website is not a place “where people can offer some contribution to the publc discourse, and have thier views counted.” It’s a gimmick — a joy buzzer — intended to dupe poor half-witted tea baggers who don’t know they’re choosing from a carefully selected, focus-group tested list of programs to cut. What tea party types won’t get is that the elimination of these programs will somehow benefit the GOP’s corporate masters.
Most classic of these is ending the federal campaign fund. This is not a tax, mind you. It’s an optional donation on your 1040 form. The GOP hates it because it could provide campaign money to an insurgent candidate — from, say, the Tea Party — in a presidential election that would drain away right-wing votes. Also getting rid of the fund makes candidates even more reliant on big donations from corporations, who are now officially persons and can donate in secret by paying for ads by front groups, etc., thanks to a ruling by the Republican US Supreme Court.
The term “Tea Baggers” is rude, offensive, and arrogant. The people who use it are of the same mindset,intellectual capacity, and maturity as the people who use crude, racist, terms to refer to African Americans. The title of this article tells me a lot about its author.
Chris, I’ll refer you to this article, Tea Baggers Hate Name-Calling, Except When They Do It.
Yes Chris, the term “tea bagger” is rude and offensive, and it’s a shame you guys decided to call yourselves that in the first place.
sedition?? what is seditious is to ignore that our government is on a self-desturctive path to bankruptcy. Record spending under Bush followed by a 2 year 40% increase above and beyond that record under Obama. Look at the site…..anyone can access it you f.ing morons. anyone can vote. And these programs posted are garbage spending that should be gotten rid of. Not crucial and productive or “green” programs. First weeks winner…..a welfare program that requires NO reform and NO limit to how long its used. cost???? 2.5 billion a year. Open your eyes this is democracy put under your control not blind faith in a over-empowered republic.
Ben, coco silver was being sarcastic. He or she was writing in favor of Cantor’s budget gimmick.
Regarding your other points, the economy was in freefall after eight years of Bush and 12 years of GOP control of Congress when Obama took office. This was not the first time the U.S. economy crashed — it wasn’t even the first time Republican anti-regulatory policies caused it to crash — so history showed what not to do, and that was to do what GOP Pres. Herbert Hoover did in 1929: nothing.
So how would you have saved the United States from five years of unemployment at 25%, runs on small-town banks, 60 million families forced into homelessness because of foreclosures, farm failures, the collapse of U.S. exports and the rest?
It’s fun to sit around throwing monkey-poo, I’m sure, but it’s typical right-wing willful delusional thinking that Dems created all this government spending for fun or to force “socialism” on the United States. As with all other right-wing delusions — take Iraq’s WMD as justification for spending $3 billion a month for seven years, or $250 billion in unnecessary spending, as just one example — the truth will come out, sooner than later.
The House GOP’s “American Idol” ploy is just political chicanery. Eric Cantor, John Boehner and the rest of their comrades goose-stepped in lockstep after Dear Leader Bush as he ran up the debt and deficit and drove the U.S. economy into the ground. They have no credibility. If Republican voters had any principles, they would have thrown these bums out.
Who are these “Tea baggers” Jon Ponder speaks of. Is that some leather-oriented fetish club?
OH You meant the “Tea Party”!
Your opinions lose credibility instantly when you use slurs like “Tea Bagger”.
Why don’t you stop dragging the Democratic party down with these juvenile tactics of name-calling and smear campaigns.
The Tea Party is tired of both sides looking and acting the same way; like self-aggrandizing, self-serving lifer politicians who only regard the Constitution after people get outraged at the encroachments of their freedoms and the pillaging of their wallets and IRA’s. “It’s the Dem’s fault. It’s the Repub’s fault.” Both parties suck because neither respects the Constitution.
Wait, Dane, don’t tea baggers call Pres. Obama a socialist, fascist, Nazi and all the rest — even though he is none of those things? As noted, tea baggers are bullies who can dish out the name-calling but then whine and play the victim card when it’s dished back at them.
In fact, the tea party is nothing but a corporate-sponsored protest mob run by the GOP. The people in the mob may not know they’re being duped, but it is plain as day to regular Americans.
The “Tea Party” is simply a Republican gimmick, where they can express their fear, racism and hatred. The GOP has these skeletons in the closet that they need to release or express for all their hate mongering members(97% of the GOP), but they can’t afford to be identified with or implicated by association, so they invented this sub-group..”Tea Party” a gimmick. Which they can conveniently disassociate their party in cases of public outrage.