Don't Cut THAT!

It's about to get scary:

But an even bigger problem is that Republicans in Congress appear to be just as ignorant about the actual impact of the grandiose spending cuts they repeatedly claim they are going to enact immediately. In coming weeks, everyone is going to get a very fast and very rough education on the real effects of slashing government spending.

On Feb. 9, House Appropriations Committee chairman Hal Rogers, R-KY, announced $74 billion in budget cuts in fiscal year 2011, which began on Oct. 1, 2010. Enacting large budget cuts in the current fiscal year when it’s almost half over is very foolish. Congress can’t cut spending that has already been spent, so it must cut very heavily from a small spending base to achieve meaningful savings.

...Lilly explains:

“With many of the 93 freshmen members of the House still asking rudimentary budget questions such as: ‘what is the difference between an authorization and an appropriation?’ or ‘how do outlays differ from budget authority?’ the time frame that Rep. Rogers and his leadership are committed to means that not only will those voting on the proposal have little opportunity to understand it but the authors themselves will not have fully vetted or completely understood what they are proposing. There have been no hearings, no requests for testimony, and no opportunity even for staff charged with proposing the cuts to do agency-by-agency analysis of the possible negative consequences. Members will vote next week on the package without fundamental knowledge of how major budget changes in literally thousands of federal programs will impact the country in general or their own constituents in particular.”

...But the fact is that millions of Americans benefit from government programs without realizing it. Indeed, research by Cornell political scientist Suzanne Mettler shows that many recipients of government benefits don’t believe that they have received any benefits.