What programs would Bachmann cut? Not many

Here’s what I would cut:

1. TSA
It’s not the role of government to be the security force for the airline industry. Let them hire and pay for their passengers’ security.

2. Commerce Dept.
It’s not the role of government to pick winners and losers in the marketplace. That’s essentially what the commerce dept. does by arranging overseas trips with select businesses to help them establish a presence in foreign countries.

3. Education Dept.
K-12 education is the role of state and local governments and not the federal government.

4. Energy Dept.
The energy dept was created to oversee the nuclear power industry but has expanded to micromanage all kinds of businesses engaged in every type of energy creation in the private sector.

SSI
5. SSI is a welfare department that uses funds from social security revenues to pay for support of widows and orphans and others. Let the states’ welfare departments pay for these people if that’s what the taxpayers want t do.

6. The Pentagon
Cut the military budget by 30%. Let them figure out who to best spend the money that’s left to defend this nation.

7. Homeland Security.
Let the FBI and the CIA go back to finding the bad guys. We don’t need 300,000 bureaucrats to do it.

I recall it was the lack of coordination between the intelligence services AND the poor screening at airports (airlines farmed this out to the cheapest contractors who paid minimum wage and little benefits, if any, to poorly-trained staff) that led to 9/11 and its aftermath and the formation of Homeland Security and TSA.

So is Rep. Bachmann playing coy or does she have no concrete answer for the question? Given the role that government spending played in her (and many other) campaign(s) I would think she’s had time to develop some ideas on the subject. And I’m sure she’s gotten her marching orders from C Street. Maybe she needs a teleprompter.

Bachmann’s statement about the T-Party:

“I think they’ll continue to be. I think it really depends upon how they’re being portrayed in the media.”

No Ms. B. It’s not about how they are portrayed in the media, it’s about what they do and how they behave. I have no doubts many of these T-Party folk will made complete asses out of themselves and prove to be completely incompetent. The media will only report that and we will be watching.

“They have no money behind them. There’s no organization, no hierarchy.”

Wow. Fall off the edge of the flat Earth much? I expect Tea Party Express, Freedomworks, Americans for Prosperity and so on are insulted.

She can remember the talking points, but she gives no indication that she has a deeper understanding of the issues.

As I recall, one of the big objections to NCLB was that it presented so many unfunded mandates to the states. While I agree with changing NCLB, and President Obama has been changing it, I do not think that cutting it would save much money.

In 2008, the cost of the wars was not included in the budget. they were tacked on with emergency spending. We could also service only 2008 levels of the national debt.

That also raises the question of when in 2008 do they want to set the benchmark – before or after they started fighting the recession.

It is easy to retreat to the past and a false sense of stability, but it is neither responsible nor realistic. We have to face today’s problems with today’s solutions, or repeat the failures of the past.

That means planning for our future, something the republicans reject.

At some point, right wing buffoons like Bachmann are going to have to get real if they are going to talk about “balancing the budget” . Everyone knows this cannot be done without raising taxes. Cutting all the stuff Dennis mentions won’t do it even if it can be done politically. I cannot understand how there exists a popular constituency against raising taxes on the wealthiest 1%, particularly when they are obviously doing nothing to put a dent in unemployment or nonprofit sector services. Everything I read about these people sounds like Samuel Gompers, when asked what he wanted: “More.”

More proof on the lack of leadership and foresight of the republican party. All talk and no action. This party is becoming a joke.

Dennis how the hell can you want to cut k-12 funding??? We are already underfunding our schools. We need to increase school funding by at least 100% if not more! Make sure that all students get the same amount of financial backing for k-12 including post high school education. This will hurt for a while but it will bring more jobs to America for our future generations thus making America stronger. You do want to make America stronger don’t you?

Interesting how Michele Bachmann avoids answering a direct question. She does that on purpose to remain relevant. She has a tendency to put her foot in her mouth far too much.

[...] has a transcript of the complete interview, and, as Andy Birkey of Minnesota Independent points out, it’s interesting in part because Bachmann doesn’t really have many [...]

I would let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire, for those making more than $500k/yr. They are ruinously expensive without providing any positive benefit.

For the $250k-$500k range, I would phase out the tax cuts over 4 years. For under $250k, I would keep the cuts for 4 years then phase them out over 4 years – if the economy permits.

I would raise the cap on FICA and pro-rate benefits for those who exceed the cap.

I would set the AMT threshold to either be a multiple of the poverty income amount or automatically adjust for inflation.

I would defund faith-based initiative programs and tax political expenditures made by groups claiming religious tax exemptions. Secular programs would get priority for foreign aid, but corruption and availability must always be taken into consideration.

Zera has some very sound ideas. I’d also consider reducing the mortgage exemption to, say, 2x the average value of housing in the state in which the house is located, and would allow the exemption for only a primary residence, and perhaps a second home/cabin–with much more limited allowance. Why should people buying $5 million dollar mansions write it all off? or for someone who has multiple houses?

I would cut a great deal of the overhead costs of education: We ought to have NATIONAL education standards, with the states varying in that they teach the history of their own state. We are the only major democracy that does not have national standards. Unless we want to say to people who have very low education requirements that they cannot move away, we need national standards so that everyone aims at the same educational achievements. That would cut down dramatically on the variety of state approved text books, and would mean that a high school graduate of Minnesota would, with the exception of state history, know the same things, and have achieved the samestandards as graduates of Montana, Massachusetts, as well as California, Arizona, etc. We have a mobile population; we need a well educated population, and some states have very low expectation. This handicaps children there, and means we are all paying for it.

As has been noted, the wars were off budget in 2008; let’s just declare victory in Afghanistan, and bring our troops home. That would save huge amounts.

Let’s restore real progressive taxation. In the post WWII years, the highest tax rate was about 90; now, we have millionnaire Congresspeople complaining about 39% rate on the highest income levels. Let’s also tax dividends at the same rate as wages; why should someone who works be penalized over those whose wealth is inherited and lives off investments. The top 2% of the population representing at least 30 million people (discounting children and recognizing families generally file as one unit) stand to make hundreds of thousands of dollars if the highest earners get their taxes extended; and yet, the we can’t afford to support the 12 million unemployed with less than $10k/year on average? Talk about unjust! Evidently words like dignity, lack of jobs, hopelessness don’t mean much to some people.

In addition, lets establish a meaningful “living minimum wage” in exchange for tax gifts for millionaires and billionaires. A family with both parents working 40 hour weeks and two kids should not be in poverty. A living minimum wage also means that jobs that pay slightly above minimum wages will improve (a category which often includes store clerks, nursing home aids, etc.). The minimum wages have decreased in value by more than half over the past 3 decades. That’s a tragedy, and I would argue, a moral crime.

Cal Sailor
Pr Chris

Going back to 2008 level of spending would be a big cut.
That counts as a cut.

And she mentioned the Department of Education. That counts as a cut.

It’s too bad that the guy who wrote paragraph #1 didn’t actually read the
rest of the story.