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Gifts for all occasions in the Galleria! The "What is the Deal?" Deal-of-the-Week: Please donate to the Salvation Army for hurricane relief. September 18, 2005 DeLay: Not Your Usual Bean Counter By Jan A. Larson House Majority Leader Tom DeLay announced last week that there was no more fat left to cut in the federal budget. I guess DeLay and President Bush don't get together to discuss governmental finances very often, because just a couple of days later, the President called for relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina be paid for, in part, by cutting "unnecessary spending." DeLay's declaration that everything was hunky-dory as far as government spending is concerned is proof-positive that career politicians do, in fact, outlive their usefulness. DeLay was first elected to Congress in 1984. It generally doesn't take very long for members of Congress to lose touch with "the people," but it is now clear that DeLay has lost touch with the government as well. As far as DeLay is concerned, the government is running at "peak efficiency." With over $60 billion in aid already promised for the Gulf Coast and the President vowing not to raise taxes to pay for it, there are only two places from which that money can come - borrowing or spending cuts. In July, the White House projected a 2005 deficit of $333 billion, down from $412 billion in 2004, but still a significant chunk of change. The cost of Gulf reconstruction added to that deficit might just seem like another big number to some people, but it represents a significant obligation of all American taxpayers, now and into the future. It is simply not prudent to toss another $60 billion onto the "liabilities" side of the ledger. As the late Senator Everett Dirksen once said, "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money." Despite DeLay's claims of governmental efficiency, he and his colleagues are going to have no choice but to call in the bean counters to root out the wasteful spending that just about everyone else knows exists. Fortunately, the Katrina bill can be paid without adding to the deficit and it won't take an army of bean counters to identify how. By exercising some degree of fiscal restraint (which is not the norm in Washington), the 2006 deficit could be cut by as much as $232 billion and savings of over $2 trillion could be realized over the next five years according to a report entitled, "Prime Cuts 2005" issued by the Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW). This report includes examples of various government boondoggles that "are plagued by fraud or negligence, serve political or parochial interests rather than the general good, do not demonstrate results, duplicate efforts in the private sector, circumvent procedural checks for transparency and accountability, or wildly exceed their original mandate." I would like to think that Rep. DeLay could take some time out of his busy schedule of doing nothing about government waste and actually read the report. I'm not holding my breath. Simply eliminating the pork barrel spending would save nearly one half of the money already allocated for Gulf reconstruction. CAGW has identified 13,997 projects classified as "pork" that, if eliminated, would save $27.3 billion in fiscal 2005 and an estimated $136.5 billion over five years. The CAGW classifies as "pork" any government spending that meets one or more of the following criteria: * Requested by only one chamber of Congress; * Not specifically authorized; * Not competitively awarded; * Not requested by the President; * Greatly exceeds the President's budget request or the previous year's funding; * Not the subject of congressional hearings; or * Serves only a local or special interest. I'm not an accountant, but projects such as the infamous $50 million indoor rainforest in Iowa, $10 million for the International Fund for Ireland and $3 million for the Cal Ripken, Sr. (that's Cal Ripken Senior, the late father of the more well-known Cal Ripken, Junior) Foundation would not appear to meet the threshold of necessary government spending. Americans are already taxed enough. We are a nation at war and have just been hit by the most devastating natural disaster in the nation's history. Now is no time for throwing millions or billions of dollars at unnecessary, politically motivated pet projects even though Tom DeLay doesn't believe they exist. -- Send feedback to the author. The "What is the Deal?" column will appears weekly on the Pie of Knowledge website. Guest submissions are welcome and encouraged. To submit an article to "What is the Deal?" click here. To subscribe to the "What is the Deal?" mailing list and receive early notification when a new column is available, click here. The Pie of Knowledge will never, ever divulge email addresses to any third party for any reason unless so ordered by a court of law. Contributions to the Pie of Knowledge are greatly appreciated. 
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