Hey, big spender! Cut it out

The coming showdown over the nation’s debt ceiling and the debate over spending cuts is frightening, mainly because we’ve had a sneak preview of just how impervious the federal behemoth seems to be to any kind of fiscal diet.

For weeks, House Republicans haggled to get a $38 billion cut in the 2011 fiscal year budget — a mere fraction compared to how much the government borrows and how much it owes — especially in light of the fact that it now spends more than it ever has.

Does it really have to be that way? It is difficult to comprehend why the federal government is so relentless, so intransigent to actual streamlining reform when businesses small and large have had to lay off employees, cut costs and improve efficiency and competitiveness in order to survive in the present economy. It may not seem like it, but the same laws of economics will eventually apply to the federal government and its astonishing $14 trillion debt.

What is so demoralizing about the paltry $38 billion cut is that it turned out to be a sham, consisting largely of expenditure cuts that have nothing to do with the government’s ongoing, programmatic spending, which is at an all-time high. Real savings are estimated to be no more than $14 billion, and some say actually less than $1 billion.

And remember, the government is borrowing just over $4 billion per day. All of those numbers are extreme, yet it is the House Republicans who are branded as extreme by their political foes for their proposals to reign in federal spending in the slightest of significant ways.

Fortunately, they are sticking to their guns, despite the political flak storm they will have to fly through as the 2012 elections approach. In a story that didn’t get much attention this week, House Speaker John Boehner told an audience  in New York that there will be no debt limit increase without significant spending cuts.

“And the cuts should be greater than the accompanying increase in debt authority the president is given,” he said. “We should be talking about cuts of trillions, not just billions.”

Boehner suggested that everything, even the military and entitlement programs, should be on the table and under scrutiny, and he’s right.

And there was a drumbeat theme among the candidates who participated in last week’s first GOP presidential debate that was also spot on: Washington doesn’t have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem. Let’s face it: If you stop spending money you don’t have, you won’t need to beg, borrow or steal to pay your bills.