The Race to Cut

Rick Perry's stumble at the GOP debate last week was a lot of fun wasn't it?  It's always bad news when Ron Paul makes you look bad.  As bad as Perry's gaffe was for him, it is a much worse harbinger for what could happen if a Republican candidate is elected next November.

Perry says he wants to cut three government agencies if elected, a number that seems small in comparison to the five Ron Paul would put on the chopping block.  That's all well and good, but is it true?  Have these people put a moment of thought into what they would be cutting or is the race to be the guy who can cut the most simply the litmus test all Republican candidates must take to pass muster with the Republican base?

Take for example the Department of Energy, the federal agency that, among other things, oversees the nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons.  Remember how opposed Republicans were to passing the New START treaty last year because they were worried that dismantling part of our nuclear stockpile would threaten national security?  Well now they want to dismantle the entire agency that is responsible for for that nuclear stockpile.  I would attribute that to hypocrisy, but I don't think that's fair; I think Republicans haven't actually put much, if any, thought into their positions.  The overwhelming desire to pass the ideological purity test has led to wanton statements about cutting without any forethought, plan or strategy.  The reason Rick Perry can't remember which agencies he would cut is because he's probably never really thought about it.  He's not being a hypocrite, he's in a race to prove that he can cut the most mindlessly, and last week he got a bit ahead of himself.

Is there waste and inefficiency in the federal government that could use trimming?  Absolutely there is.  But Rick Perry and the rest of the lot - Ron Paul exempted, but he's just crazy - haven't studied the system enough to know where that waste is and what we can do to eliminate it.  What they do know is that the more they offer to cut, the louder the cheers get and the higher the poll numbers go, so Rick Perry is going to eliminate three federal agencies not because he knows what they do or whether they are necessary but because that makes him look good in the eyes of the conservative base.

This reckless desire to cut is poorly thought out and could have potentially disastrous consequences for the economy and the nation, but more importantly - and this message is for the conservative base - it's just not realistic.  Maybe people get fired up when Perry talks about cutting three federal agencies, or when Ron Paul waxes poetic about the joys of anarchy, but it's not going to happen.  President Perry (god forbid) would never be able to fully eliminate federal agencies the way he talks about.  Many of those agencies provide important services and even Republican Senators and Congressmen would fight to save agencies that provide those services or create jobs in their home states.

The current Republican positions, therefore, aren't only silly, dangerous and not at all thought out, they're empty promises. And the really scary part about this is that if Perry were to become president and subsequently fail to eliminate those agencies - which is what would happen - the rabid far right would simply find someone else who promised to cut four agencies or seven agencies, or just eliminate the government altogether...Ron Paul!! It's a vicious, self-feeding cycle and it's driving the country in the wrong direction.