Cut Spending and Cut the Crap

For the first time in about 14 years, we have the chance before us to see some fiscal discipline in Washington. A lot of people talk about cutting spending, but few follow through. One reason for that is, whenever someone starts to get serious and specific about it, the supporters of big government start aiming to deliver thousands of little paper cuts, hoping to preserve government spending. "You can't cut X program!" "You can't cut Y; it's for the children!" "You are heartless!" Etc., etc. That process is starting up again.

I would like to now offer up a typical example of this, albeit one that is transparent and shallow. It is from Eugene Robinson, a columnist that is reliably wrong:

According to The Post, affected agencies would suffer a 30 percent cut in funding over the next seven months.

Do Americans really want the effectiveness of, say, food safety inspection to be eroded by 30 percent? What about air traffic control? I didn't think so.

Here's what's wrong with this:

• A 30% cut to government spending does not mean every program gets cut by 30%. Some programs would get cut by 100%, others would get cut by 0%, or 10%. Now, it is a common government trick to threaten to cut high-profile, popular programs when faced with the threat of cuts (this strategy even has a name). However, there are certain programs/services that we all agree government should provide. To threaten the loss of these is dishonest, because nobody is proposing that.

• A 30% cut to a program doesn't mean it becomes 30% less effective. Government is not known for efficiency. Nobody expects federal agencies to offer quick, effective, reliable, customer-friendly, common sense service. Government lacks the incentives and bad-employee-punishment ability needed to offer such service. Thus, pretty much any agency can afford to take a haircut without needing to decrease its services, if these agencies are managed right.

• To stick with the food inspection example, the government is not the only thing standing between Americans and mass food poisoning. People like Robinson think corporations would be perfectly happy to poison us all, as long as they make money. Well, news of food poisoning caused by a specific restaurant or food item generally is not good for business. For most businesses, the fear of this is much greater that the fear that some bureaucrat might discover salmonella in their production facility. The market does actually respond to incentives. Plus, despite what you might have heard, most CEOs don't really want you to die. Of course, there are bad apples, and they are who food inspections are meant to catch. But to suggest that we're all gonna die if the federal budget gets cut is, again dishonest. Or maybe foolish. Or maybe a bit of both.

So be prepared to see arguments like this all over the place once plans for spending cuts become specific in the coming weeks. I applaud President Obama for the spending cuts, regulation reform, and tax simplification proposals he made in his State of the Union address. It's time to get to work and ignore those who seek to inflict paper cuts. I would argue that the spiraling growth of deficits and of the federal government are a far greater danger than anything liberal pundits will threaten us with.