http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/americans-want-to-cut-spending-they-just-dont-know-what-to-cut/?ref=economy
To cut spending or not to cut spending? Those are the questions that the author Rampell highlights in this article. The article talks about the tough decision that Americans have make when they look to cut an area of government spending. Do you cut the State Department or the Energy sector? Making these kinds of decisions isn't easy. According to the article, 70 percent of of Americans say its essential for Washington to pass major legislation to reduce the federal budget deficit this year. But what is the most important part of government spending to cut?
4 comments:
Interesting article. It will not be possible to please all people with regardless of what is chosen. I think there is a lot of wasted spending within the government. I would consider them restructuring guidelines for those who receive benefits. I think more stringent guidelines would help save the government a significant amount of money.
Some cuts to the defense budget would be helpful. The US has the largest defense budget as a share of GDP of any OECD country by far. We could find areas to cut that would not effect or national security.
I agree that some cuts could be made to our national defense budget. No federally funded group wants to lose funding, but changes do need to be made. I think there should be a way to see what projects or programs have the most effect on the public. If one is less elastic than another, meaning that budget cuts wouldn't make as much of a difference if applied to that area, then the cutbacks should occur there.
It's interesting that there are not really clear indicators of what the public wants to cut. I was surprised that the article said that people do not want to cut military spending, especially because there are military operations that could be cut with no likely negative outcome. I think that whatever ends up being cut needs to be something that does not hinder long-term growth. If we cut things like education for example, we face negative effects in the long term future.
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