Last year the House Republican leadership created the GOP’s “YouCut” website, which offers several possible spending cuts for citizens to vote on. The cut with the most votes goes to the House floor for an up-or-down vote. It’s a decent idea, but unfortunately, most of the cuts the GOP have offered thus far only amount to chump change.
This week the House Republican leadership finally put the Pentagon on the YouCut chopping block. However, the possible cuts suggested by the GOP are pathetic:
1. Reduce the Department of Defense’s printing and reproduction budget by 10 percent ($36 million in savings in fiscal 2012).
2. Reduce spending for Defense studies, analysis and evaluations by 10 percent ($24 million in savings in fiscal 2012).
3. Restrict payout of annual nationwide adjustment and locality pay for “below satisfactory” civilian Defense employees ($21 million in first-year savings).
To put the potential “savings” in perspective, the United States’ latest act of military adventurism (Libya) has already cost taxpayers $550 million. Take that military-industrial complex!
The Washington Times recently reported that Sen. Rand Paul’s balanced budget plan drew “several fairly vocal objections to it” from his GOP colleagues because he dared to include defense cuts. Indeed, House Republicans left the Pentagon alone when coming up with $61 billion in cuts to discretionary programs for the remainder of the fiscal year.
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