cinco de mayo: Want To Cut Spending...then stop talking about the deficit bullshit

Vilifying people on welfare or receiving Social Security is hypocritical

If one is to take into consideration how much money our government hands out to corporations in the form of subsidies and how much more it fails to collect from reduced taxes to the very wealthy…it is unbelievable the Republican-Teahadists would go after those who are the poorest and the ones who really need a helping hand.

For the life of me I have never understood how Republicans can begrudge a few thousand dollars a year handed out to a mother raising her children and not even bat an eyelash when handing out billions to corporations…it is downright immoral!

Here are some of the suggestions to cut spending, we know Republican-Teahadists will never go for - touching their two sacred cows: tax cuts for the rich and a reduction in the Defense budget:

“Below is a list of items that are from a comment by #37927 on Contra O'Reilly.

OK immediate 50% cut to the bloated Pentagon budget, so we can bring the brigade home the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team from Vicenza, Italy. After all nobody has attacked them since 1944-45, nor do they look endangered.

We can also bring all the troops occupying Germany home since their reason for being there "the USSR" ended in 1991.

Ditto for Japan, Bulgaria, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Israel, Romania.

We also could downsize from an 11 carrier fleet to a more reasonable 7-8 carrier fleet given how much the right wing wants budget cuts. we could also take off line half the nuclear attack and boomer subs, since both the Russians and US all are downsizing our ability to nuke the world 3-5 times over. Also, wars are not fought the same way anymore…it is now dealing with terrorists, using technology and diplomacy rather than boots on the ground)

Downsize the air Force in a similar manner, MUCHO money saved; besides, it is unconstitutional to have an Air Force (It does not appear in the Constitution…lol)

Total federal spending on a safety net for the poor costs the average taxpayer about $400 a year, while spending on corporate welfare programs costs the same taxpayer about $1400 a year. (source: Congressional Budget Office figures)

The largest direct subsidy program in the federal budget is for crop and farm subsidies. Most farmers don’t receive direct subsidies from the federal government,” the report states. “The taxpayer-financed handouts go to only about one-third of the nation’s farmers and ranchers. So, where does all the taxpayer money spent on farmers actually go? Mainly to large corporate agribusinesses and the richest farmers.

Make the farmers getting welfare start paying for all their expenses, NO government money at all.

Cut all subsidies to oil corps, and any other for profit industries'

Give the airlines the full bill for all airport construction and traffic control and accident investigations costs.

Allow the SS admin to bargain for drug costs like the VA can, so less government money is wasted.

End the $70 + billion in public airwave channel rights free of charge...make them PAY for the public airwaves, so they stop getting a free ride,.

Individuals and families must demonstrate need to receive benefits, while corporations with billions of dollars in annual income remain on the federal dole.

Take away Wal-Mart's $37 million from Uncle Sam in the transportation bill.

Stop handing money to Egypt and Israel so they can buy weapons, make their citizens cough up the money, not US tax payers.

Make BP pay the FULL costs of all the response to their oil spill in the gulf.

Charge market costs for Resource leases for mineral rights.

Let Boeing, GE, Conoco Phillips among others finance their foreign sales instead of the US government doing it for them.

Why should American taxpayers subsidize the foreign advertising budgets of McDonalds, General Mills, Campbell’s Soup, Pillsbury, Miller’s beer and Gallo wines, as has been the case in the past?

The Cato Institute defined corporate welfare as “any federal spending program that provides payments or unique benefits and advantages to specific companies or industries.” Stephen Slivinski, director of budget studies of the think tank, conducted a detailed policy analysis of the issue in 2007 titled, “The corporate Welfare State: How the Federal Government Subsidizes U.S. Businesses.

The report shows that despite all of the public pleas for the federal government to play a reduced role in private businesses, many Fortune 500 companies are using the federal government as their personal ATMs and have made no moves to get off of the dole.

Thats seems like a good start.

Seems like a good start to me too.”

I would also like to add a few of my own:

Charge the oil companies an application fee to drill anywhere within the US waters…a fee that is commensurate to the money we spend on administering the Department of Energy and policing and inspecting these wells.

Force oil companies to keep on escrow a large fund to be used and have readily available in case of another spill or disaster. Our government could also put that money on short term investments and that would bring us amazing revenues plus we would have the funds to give to FEMA when the need arises. We don’t want to go through the haggling that we experienced with the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and how Republicans opposed even that…President Obama was able to squeeze them out of 27 billion but I am sure that the costs were a lot higher than that. And then the Republicans have the balls to make sure any relief aid given to disaster victims is properly funded or taken out of some other agency’s budget. Well, no more of that crap.