When it comes to cutting programs, we hear inevitably what an insignificant part of the federal budget each program is. But focusing on the relatively small percentage of the annual budget is a misleading way to look at spending.
What motivates many politicians is the legacy of a particular program, which they can then tout as a great accomplishment to the constituencies.
These programs are political sacred cows and the politicians who either created them, or enhance them, hold to them like political life lines.
One such sacred cow is Public Television, which is often mentioned for the federal chopping block. According to government documents, the federal numbers going to the CPB are a relatively small percentage of the annual federal budget. Add to the relatively small federal numbers, the stories of impending cultural doom that would come about from cut and Public Television remains sacred...and uncut.
Planned Parenthood is also a sacred cow often mentioned in federal cuts conversations. Once again, the defenders will recite the common refrain of how little these programs are relative to the federal budget.
The National Endowment for the Arts is one yet another program of the a fore mentioned sacred cows. Add to that the National Endowment for the Humanities, and we have the relatively painless cutting being proposed. Obviously some of the cuts mentioned above will mean that jobs are lost. However, with the cuts in the pentagon and other defense related cuts, job losses in the public sector would be shared by several departments and recipients of federal aide. If the Pentagon cuts of over a hundred billion dollars become real cuts, and not simply budgetary shifting, those cuts would equal more than the amount of the federal contributions to the CPB, the National Endowments for the Arts, and the National Endowments for the Humanities added all together.
Congress can then cut, or reform, some programs that could be more painful, like reform of other sacred cows like Amtrak, Public Employee Union reform and perhaps even entitlements. Former Utah Senator Robert Bennett has been proposing entitlement reform that could significantly change the future costs and strain of these programs. Bennett’s model isn’t particularly hard to sell or understand; his plan simply holds the contributions at current levels (adjusted for inflation) and with a few other minor tweaks the daunting burden of these programs are more than some what mitigated.
Amazingly the reforms would largely be painless for recipients. For the CPB, the National Endowments for Arts and Humanities, Amtrak and Planned Parenthood, cutting federal contributions would not necessarily end these programs. Here we see that with the cut of a few sacred cows, billions could be trimmed from the budget deficit. Now imagine that there were One Thousand sacred cow, which is a moderate estimate. With the cutting of about a thousand sacred cows the budget would conceivably come back into a manageable numbers. Furthermore, if the pain of giving up sacred cows were shared across party lines and throughout members of Congress, without regard for seniority, the potential for cuts are much greater, equaling hundreds of billions of dollars. And all of this is without repealing Obamcare; cutting that monstrosity would bring the budget from future precipices.
All it takes is a few sacred cows being sacrificed and the record deficits of the last few years become significantly less overwhelming.
-Now how do we get politicians to allow there sacred cows to be cut?
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