Yay, spending cuts!

House Republican minority whip Eric Cantor has now released a fun online interactive tool. It allows participants to choose their favorite spending cut, and the winners will be voted on in the house sometime in the future. How fun! Lets take a loot at some of these cuts:

1.) Presidential Election Fund

2.) Taxpayer subsidized union activities

3.) HUD program for doctoral dissertations

4.) Welfare

5.) Community Development Block Grants

This all seems really fun. Lets take a pick; do you want to cut funding for presidential elections so corporations control our elections? How about reduce wages and benefits? Maybe eliminate your safety net if you are unemployed and cannot find a job? Or maybe tell your community to fend for itself if its economically disadvantaged?

This interactive tool masks the true cost of spending cuts. Spending cuts should be the last option on the table when our taxes are at our lowest levels since the Truman administration. Why are we even considering the most painful option first, without even considering raising our unrealistically low taxes? When we have to make painful decisions, we should not even be considering spending cuts during a recession. And if you're going cut welfare for poor Americans, lets have the decency not to make a game out of it.

Lets stop wasting our money protecting Europe

While watching the debate between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley during the special senatorial election to replace Ted Kennedy I noticed both Scott Brown (R) and the Libertarian Kennedy argued for spending cuts in social programs to reduce the deficit. I don't think there is any disagreement between economists these days that spending cuts will be needed to decrease the record deficit we are stuck with. The disagreement among our politicians and civil society is where to find these budget cuts. I have argued that strategic budget cuts and strategic tax increases can both reduce the deficit and improve the economy as a whole. An example of this is a new carbon tax and cuts in the oil subsidies the federal government now gives out to lower the cost of oil. This would have the effect of reducing carbon emissions without actually addressing the issue.

One area nobody is talking about when it comes to budget cuts is defense spending. I'm not talking about cutting funding for our troops abroad, halting research in new technology, or somehow putting our troops in danger. I'm talking about reconsidering our commitments under NATO and other protective treaties. We currently hold obligations to defend most of Western Europe, a monumental task requiring endless manpower and capital. Right now, the United States contributes nearly 50% of NATO's total defense spending. We have one of the highest per capita military expenditures in the world, estimated at around 934.9 billion dollars in 2009 alone.

So how does this compare to the military expenditures of other NATO member nations?

Source: Congressional Research Service

The United States clearly shoulders a disproportionate share of NATO's military spending. Though this could be justified during a prolonged diplomatic rift with the USSR, in this day and age Europe should pay for some of its own defense. The United States is consumed with its worst budget deficit in decades. Cutting military spending doesn't have to involve reduced capacity to fight our ongoing wars or a compromised national security. It simply means dumping some of the responsibility for defense on the countries that will actually benefit from it.