Stupid Letter of the Week

This week's highlighted letter comes from Charles Burright. Charles and I would actually agree on many things related to his letter. I selected it solely to point out how little most people know about the federal budget and deficit. Charles thinks he has a plan. He might be surprised to find that his plan is little more than a drop in the ocean.

Deep cuts needed to solve federal deficit


The following list will solve the federal deficit problem: Reduce the mostly unearned pay of members of Congress by 10 percent and their top three staffers of each by 6 percent; cut the staff of all members of Congress by 15 percent; reduce the number of congressional committees and their staffs by 35 percent; slash the Department of Energy by 60 percent, Education by 50 percent, Interior by 50 percent; eliminate all so-called "czars" and their staffs; completely ban all earmarks as these are almost all campaign bribe payoffs; stop all foreign aid especially to our enemies; stop any farm program payments to anyone who does not actually earn his livelihood by farming the land; and end all program payments to any agri-business company.

Each year that the federal budget is not balanced, congressional pay and the pay of the top five in each cabinet level department should by cut by 5 percent. Also, stop calling welfare programs like Medicaid "entitlements." And finally, no more bailouts of any private businesses.

Charles Burright
Lenexa

Here is the problem with Charles' logic. He has only called out a percentage reduction to a small fraction of the discretionary spending. Discretionary spending accounts for 30% of the total budget, so if all discretionary spending were cut by 100% we would save around $1 trillion. We would still have a deficit of over $400 billion. You cannot tame the beast unless you also consider cuts in defense spending, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. That is the deep hole our Congress has let us fall into.