"This proposal is simply unacceptable," said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, this week in response to the draft plan released by the President's bipartisan deficit commission.
I actually agree with Pelosi, for two reasons, neither of which she has considered, I would wager.
First of all, I am not convinced the President has the authority to convene such a commission. It seems like purely a legislative action. Since the Congress appropriates funds, the Executive should only be spending what is given to him by the legislature. So if there's a place to work on cutting spending, it should be Congress leading the way. Further if the impetus for this study was a Presidential need for findings to pass to Congress for action, this is an example of a President legislating, which I have written about before as objectionable.
Secondly, this commission is not seeking to fix the root of the problem. The problem is the federal debt- not the deficit. And the deficit is a consequence of a malignant federal government. Our federal government is too big, too expensive, too inefficient, and has too much inertia. The cuts recommended have been stylized as a way to "save" Social Security and other programs. We need to abandon these programs which are inherently inefficient. Not only is such centralized economic planning ineffective, it is not authorized under our Constitution. The Founders were prescient. The agreement they created set a path to economic prosperity that we have left, in search of subsidized drug benefits and federally funded retirements. It is a lethal departure though and we either face that reality now, or pass the pain to the next generation. And it is a burden which grows more and more impossible to bear each year.
So when looking for where to cut, the Congress (it is the responsibility of solely that body) should simply roll out the Constitution and go down the list of enumerated powers. Have an intern print out the Wikipedia entry for federal departments and follow along.
"Department of Agriculture"
GONE
"Department of Commerce"
GONE
Of course a sensible, paced transition is necessary. That is one observation the deficit commission has apparently reached with which I agree. (Although again, as with Pelosi- I agree with them, but not for the same reasons). Most of the commission's recommendations would not take place until 2012, so as to not slow the alleged economic recovery. I believe it is necessary to have a year, or even two, to plan to make the transition as efficient and painless as possible. But I do not believe we are in an economic recovery (this is a Keynesian pump and dump recovery), but the conclusion is the same: let's take it slow.
A return to a Constitutional system of governance will be an arduous, trying procedure and we will need bright minds planning and executing the transition.
This raises another point, which most libertarian commentators ignore, but I want to be on the record as making: the United States Government is full of intelligent, patriotic, sensible, efficient employees.
USGWaste.com is the title I use for my thoughts but I know that nearly all of the 4,000,000 plus federal employees are decent people. Many of them are outstanding at their jobs. And some are essential. It is the existing system, a bastardization of the one originally imagined, which is at fault. (The system, of course, came about from lax oversight from the electorate, so if we want to blame someone for bloated government, blame the voters who kept electing big government progressives, each worse than the one before, throughout the last century).
So rather than just slash and burn federal programs desperately, which is what will happen if we merely patch up the current system for a few years but then watch it crash down later, let's fix it properly-- but slowly-- now.
Sensible libertarian views on nearly everything- except foreign affairs.