Screwing the Military . . .

This just in: DoD Panel Calls for Radical Retirement Overhaul!

Oh, this is a beaut! Essentially, the DoD, in an effort to reduce costs associated with retiree pay in years to come, recommends that Congress do away with the traditional military retirement program. Essentially, the way the current system works is that it's a defined benefit program; after 20 years military service, a person can retire and receive 40% of their base pay over the highest-paid three-year period. After 30 years service, it increases up to 60%. (Back in the olden days, it was even better, with the percentages at 50% and 75%, respectively, but that was way, way back.)

And the recommended plan is to eliminate that altogether, and replace it with a plan very similar to a 401(k) program, like most civilians have.

So . . . what's wrong with that?

How many civilian jobs, besides fire and police, include the possibility that workers may have to give their lives for their employer? How many civilian jobs require that you give up a number of rights we civilians enjoy? How many civilian jobs can send you halfway around the world, to extremely austere conditions, where there are people who are actively trying to kill you, AND keep your family in the dark about what's going on? Yeah, there's some cushy military jobs; always has been and always will be. But there's plenty of hard-core military jobs that have absolutely no civilian equivalent--infantry, armor, artillery; submarines; landing in a hot LZ or assaulting an enemy-held beach. And you can't ignore the flyboys, either; how many jobs can require you to strap yourself into a small cramped compartment, fly 18 hours

into a combat zone, bomb targets while evading SAMs and triple-A fire, and then fly 18 more hours back home?

Have we come so far away from the major sacrifices the military has made in the past that we have forgotten? More than 1.2 million Americans have died in battle since the Declaration was signed. How many other professions have had to sacrifice so much to ensure our freedoms? Yeah, we've lost nearly 5,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; but we lost over 58,000 in Vietnam, and more than 400,000 in the European and Pacific Theaters in WWII; more than 620,000 died in the Civil War to bring an end to slavery in the United States--which was more than 2% of the population of the entire nation at the time.

I remember hearing a story from a nurse, back in WWII, who landed on Omaha Beach on June 8, 1944, two days after D-Day. She was from Georgia, and saw the beach as the boat carried her and her fellow nurses to the shore. "Oh, that looks like good old Georgia clay," she exclaimed, seeing the reddish cast just beyond the waves. A colonel standing nearby told her, "Honey, that's not clay. That's blood soaked into the sand."

Is it really appropriate then to cut the admittedly generous retirement plans offered to those who have held the line, manned their posts, and kept the War on Terror away from country, away from our homes? They serve day in and day out, ready to be the ones who may have to pay any price, bear any burden, to protect our country and our way of life. Their line of work is far more demanding than ours, any of ours, and that retirement plan is one of the things that they deserve--even if it is expensive. They have earned it.

Doing Good

My son William and I spent yesterday evening at the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, volunteering our time to help in their efforts. Last night it was the Food for Kids program, the one that supplies a backpack of food to kids in school, to help keep them fed over the weekend.

Each backpack contains about 3 3/4 lbs of food (about 1.7 kilos). There was a small jar of peanut butter, a sleeve of crackers, a small box of shelf-stable milk, another of chocolate milk, another box of fruit juice, a pack of almonds, a small bowl of applesauce, one of those self-contained bowls of cereal, a pack of dried fruit, and one of those fruit-cereal bars. The USDA considers 1 1/3 lbs (that's around 600 grams, doing the conversion in my head) of food to be a meal, so there's just under three meals there. I don't know about the nutritional content, but it seems to be pretty balanced. It might be sufficient for three meals for a younger child, maybe kindergarten through 3rd grade, but probably not enough for an older child.

The Regional Food Bank started the Food for Kids backpack program in 2003, following a story from an Oklahoma City elementary school principal about one of their students who had fainted in the school lunch line on a Monday. When questioned, the principal found that the child had not eaten all weekend, not since lunchtime at school the previous Friday. The child's family was in dire financial straits, and they had no food in the home.

The program provides chronically hungry school children (identified by school personnel) with these backpacks, on Fridays and before school holidays, so they'll have at least something to eat over the weekend. The children then return the backpacks on Monday, and the Regional Food Bank makes sure there's food to restock them for the next weekend.

Since 2003, when the program served just 5 Oklahoma City schools and 180 students, the program has grown to cover 305 elementary schools, in 42 counties across central and western Oklahoma, serving more than 10,000 students every week of the school year.

I'll quote from their website:

"Since there is a critical connection between childhood nutrition and cognitive and physical development, even nutritional deficiencies of a relatively short-term nature negatively impact a child's health, behavior, and the ability to concentrate and perform complex tasks. In additon, going without food can cause behavioral and psychological effects such as depression, aggression, anxiety, and poor social skills in children. Food is the most essential school supply. Hungry children cannot learn."

Of course, being centered around schools, that still leaves the kids at risk of going hungry during the summer. The Regional Food Bank also supports other programs (MANY others), some of which do address this need during the summer months.

Now, I don't know where you might be, you who are reading this, and I don't know what the situation is like in your community. I do know that this is a significant problem here in Oklahoma; we rank in the bottom 5 states in the US in terms of 'food security', people regularly getting enough to eat. Deindustrialization has hit hard here (I'll address that topic in another post) and many of the good-paying jobs are gone, and what's replaced them are lower-paying service-sector jobs. The net result is that our state is poorer than it used to be, and that reflects in people not having enough to eat.

The Regional Food Bank's data shows that their average recipient of assistance is in a family of three, with at least one adult working at least one job (and frequently more than one job). The average annual income for these families is $11,440, well below the poverty line. Less than 20% are unemployed, and nearly 1/3 are disabled or retired (this data is from across all of the Regional Food Bank's programs, not just Food for Kids). So it's not a case of those hoary old stories of 'welfare mamas' that some people assume; these are generally decent working people who simply cannot get a job to make enough, at least at this point in their lives, to feed themselves and their kids. Most telling is the fact that of those families with children served by the Regional Food Bank, 56% of adults stated that they (the parents) sometimes had to skip meals because there was not enough money for food, but only 11% stated that their children had to skip meals because of a lack of money for food. So there's a whole lot of moms and dads out there, doing without so their kids can eat. And all it takes is one major illness, one car wreck (and you know that if they're having trouble putting food on the table, they're not going to have full coverage on their car), and they're in even worse shape. And there are thousands, and thousands, of people like this out there; across the United States, there's easily a couple of million people in situations like this (if not more).

Now . . . let's put this into perspective in terms of the budget crisis and the debt ceiling debate. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, there's no real way out of this financial mess we've collectively created over the past 40 years without massive cuts in federal spending coupled with significant tax increases. The SNAP program, the one that used to be known as food stamps, that's a federal program (the benefits portion is fully funded by the federal government, and the feds pay for nearly half of a state's cost to administer the program). And it could very well see additional budget cuts. That means there's less money for food for each of the recipients. (And according to a Food Research and Action Center study, in 2007 there were 13 million more people who were eligible for SNAP but had not signed up--and that's before the recession hit, too--so there are untold millions more not on SNAP that are not 'food secure', to use the government term for being hungry.)

[And yes, I've seen the stories of people buying steak and lobster on SNAP cards--which speaks to a need to reform the SNAP program to prevent such abuse, NOT that it should be eliminated or that everyone who's on it is a louse that's milking the government for everything they can get. And in that particular case, the individual who bought the steak and lobster--with the intent to resell it--was caught and has been charged with welfare fraud, and faces up to 5 years in prison if convicted.]

There's a whole bunch of those federal 'safety net' programs that are potentially going to get cut, and cut back hard. The folks up on Capitol Hill keep bandying around figures like $4 trillion in cuts, $2 trillion in cuts, $9 trillion in cuts--where do you think those cuts are going to come from? Do you know that if you were to spend $1 million a day, each and every day, since the time Christ was born until now, that you still wouldn't have spent even $1 trillion? Even with inflation, a trillion dollars is still a whole lot of money.

And every tax increase reduces the amount that can be spent on other things, like food for example. Even if we tax the hell out of the rich, it still won't generate enough revenue; some of the tax increases are going to have to be borne by each and every American, including the working poor. So in years to come they'll have even less to spend on food, for themselves and for their kids.

And if we're to have any hope whatsoever for the future of our nation, we need to be paying a lot more attention to our kids, and to their education. What they learn in our schools is fundamental to what they'll be able to do as adults. If we wish the United States to continue to be the powerhouse of innovation, of research and discovery, of entrepreneurship, and of social justice that it has been in the past, we need to ensure that our schools are up to the task, and that our students are ready to learn--and if they're hungry it's just that much more difficult to accomplish the more lofty goals of education.

So . . . the need for programs like the Food for Kids backpacks, and organizations like the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, is only going to go up and up. So, wherever you're at, won't you please take a look around and find an organization like ours here in Oklahoma City that helps those less fortunate? Even if you don't have any money to donate (I know I'm stretched pretty thin), you can donate something that's far more valuable--your time. All of us, regardless of the size of our bank account, only get 24 hours in a day. Volunteer labor helps groups like this to keep their costs down. The need for this is universal, I suspect, even far beyond the borders of the United States.

I suppose it comes down to a basic question: is there too much suffering in the world? And, are you willing to do something about it? It goes beyond being a good Christian, or a good Muslim, or Jew, or Buddhist, or any other religion I know of; it's a 'decent human being' thing to do, to help relieve the suffering of others. It's even being a good atheist; those who suffer are more likely to commit crimes than those who are happy and content, and even atheists are victims of crime.

Together with a group from Griffin Communications (which owns the local CBS affiliate, KWTV Channel 9, here in Oklahoma City, and KOTV Channel 6 in Tulsa, and others as well--you can't say enough good things about that company, and maybe I'll do a post on them later, too) last night we collectively bagged up 1,584 backpacks of food for the start of the school year, which starts, for Oklahoma City Public Schools and Putnam City Public Schools here in the metro area, this next Monday, August 1st. So that's 1,584 Oklahoma school kids who will have at least something to eat next weekend, out of a need for 10,000+. What about the rest? And what about the following weekend? And the one after that? Are you willing to help?

If It's Good Enough For The Catholic Church, It's Good Enough for Congress

Here's an idea to help resolve the current (and ongoing) crisis in Washington, and it borrows heavily from the Catholic Church.

Way back in 1268, following the death of Pope Clement IV, the College of Cardinals convened their Papal Conclave to elect a new pope, just as had been done many times before, and many times since. However, the cardinals of that time had a real problem getting the job done.

So first they locked them up, away from everyone else, in a chapel (the Sistine Chapel hadn't been built yet). It was hoped that by isolating them, they would more fully concentrate on the task at hand.

But that didn't work.

So, the cardinals were only given bread and water to eat and drink. No other food or drink was allowed in to them. (BTW, this is still a valid punishment used by the US Navy to discipline sailors who get into trouble.)

But still that didn't work.

So . . . they removed the roof from the chapel where the cardinals were staying.

That did the trick! They elected Pope Gregory X.

So, here's my proposal, and I propose that we use this every time that Congress refuses to pass a budget or otherwise do their duty. 30 days prior to the deadline (the end of the fiscal year in normal years, where they have yet to pass a budget for the following fiscal year), we lock them in the House chamber, along with the President. No aides, no family, no one at all. We can watch them on C-SPAN, and if they need a doctor, we could send one in, but that's it. The Vice President gets to sit in the big chair in the White House for a change. Yeah, I know he/she is supposed to be the president of the Senate, but somebody's got to be there to push the button if it's necessary.

15 days prior to the deadline, we put them on bread and water. And they get one good multi-vitamin per day.

And 5 days before the deadline, if they still are squabbling like a bunch of spoiled 4 year olds, we move them all out onto the National Mall, and cordon them off, keeping the public at least 100 yds back. No tents, no sleeping bags; no chairs, tables, or desks. Just 2 blankets and a pillow each. The dietary restrictions (bread and water, and a vitamin pill) continue in effect. They can stay out there and bake in the sun (OK, they can get some sun screen if that's the case), or freeze in the snow (they can have a coat, gloves, and a ski cap), or get wet if it rains (pass out the umbrellas--and take them back up when the rain stops). And there they stay until they do what they were elected to do.

Sound a little extreme? Well, maybe, but then again that's exactly how our troops out in the field live. And besides, they're all a bunch that's not all that tough; they won't let it go that far. They're not going to want to have to sleep on the ground with the bugs--they'll pass the legislation needed to keep them all inside and comfortable, and able to go to Morton's for dinner.

And we won't have to go through all the garbage they're putting our country through.

The Real Cost of "Tort Reform"

Andrew Cohen (who according to the blurb on the website, has served as chief legal analyst and legal editor for CBS News and won a Edward R. Murrow Award for his work) has an excellent article in The Atlantic entitled "The Real Cost of 'Tort Reform'".

In it, he reports on the settlement between the injured parties and the railroad companies involved in the September 2008 train wreck between Metrolink #111 and a Union Pacific freight train near Chatsworth, California. You may recall this; the engineer on the Metrolink train was texting while driving--A PASSENGER TRAIN--and didn't see the other train barrelling down on him at a closing speed of over 80 mph.

24 people died--first and foremost the texting engineer--and more than 100 more were injured.

Now, the rest of the story is that the train company admitted liability in the case; there was no point in even trying to defend themselves; they admitted they knew about the engineer's history of texting while driving their trains, and did little or nothing about it--if they did take disciplinary action against him, it wasn't enough, because he didn't stop doing it.

However, as Mr. Cohen points out, tort reform had been in place since the 1997 attempt to 'save' Amtrack. Specifically, the 1997 Amtrack Accountability and Reform Act included language that capped a rail company's liability to $200 million per accident or incident. So . . . in this case, Metrolink (or more correctly, those doing business as Metrolink) had to pay only $200 million, no matter how egregious their negligence or how many people were killed or injured.

So they paid $200 million to the court, and walked away. Per federal law.

Then the court had the unenviable task of equitably dividing up the $200 million amongst the victims of the accident. This was passed around from one judge to another until finally the Honorable Peter D. Lichtman settled the case.

In a 32-page opinion, Judge Lichtman details the accident, the forces and mechanics of the crash, sometimes with detail that would do an NTSB report proud. He also goes into detail about the injuries sustained by the survivors, how injuries in this type of accident are far worse than what are seen in most automobile or plane crashes (since both of those other modes of transport have seat belts and other restraint devices, and are generally engineered to improve survivability in an accident), and therefore those injuries are more likely to require follow-on care to a greater degree and for a greater length of time, than injuries from car or plane crashes. Furthermore, trains will seat people at tables; those facing the direction of travel at tables in this particular accident endured horrible, crushing injuries to their abdominal organs, as the first point of contact between themselves and the train was the edge of the table--at an initial impact velocity of around 80 mph. The injuries sustained by all the victims are also more likely to result in permanent disability and permanent loss of range-of-motion. He also details the prevelance of PTSD amongst the survivors. In addition, there were several families involved that have special-needs children, who now have greatly reduced capacity for support of those families and children.

He then calculates that the 'normal' range of the cost of a settlement in a case like this would be around $320 to $350 million, with a very low end of $264 million. But, thanks to the tort reform efforts of Congress and then-President Clinton, all they had to share was $200 million, and it was the court's task to parcel that out.

In this case Judge Lichtman introduces (or at least describes) a new legal doctrine that will become more and more prevalent as more and more tort reform takes place: triage. When the maximum legal remedy provided by law is inadequate, the court must then do the best it can with what the legislative and executive branches have left it. The worst injuries get the most, the lesser injuries get less, and practically no one gets enough to make things right.

As Mr. Cohen points out at the end of his column:

"I won't fight that policy [that tort reform takes away from the victims and survivors and gives to the corporations] on its merits, at least not here and now. Instead I'll make the case for false pretenses. When the American people are pitched 'tort reform' by their politicians, and the politicians' lobbyists, I don't believe the pitchees [that's you and me] understand the phrase encompasses the policy choice evidenced by the result of the Chatsworth case. Instead, I believe that the American people often are duped into believing that so-called 'tort reform' almost always has to do with a greedy plaintiff, a frivolous lawsuit, an ambulance chaser on the make, and a beleaguered corporation.

"Nor do I believe that most Americans understand how deeply 'tort reforms' undercut the fundamental democratic importance of the jury's verdict. Judge Lichtman's verdict is a testament to the neutering of the justice system--another policy choice which I don't believe has ever been sufficiently explained or justified to the American people."

(The sections in brackets are my own comments.)

And perhaps now is a good time to point out that during the last election cycle, according to Mr. Cohen's column, the U.S. House of Representatives' Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (the committee most directly responsible for oversight of rail transportation) received $52 million in campaign contributions from corporate political action committees, including $6 million from the transportation industry. And as Mr. Cohen points out, that's pretty good when you consider that this 'investment' saved one transportation company at least $64 million (and potentially $100 million more), thanks to 'tort reform' passed by Congress 14 years ago.

One last thing--if you're riding on a train, try to sit in the middle of the train, in a seat facing backwards. Avoid sitting at tables in a seat facing forwards at all costs; it actually might be better to stand than to sit at a table facing forward--in the worst-case scenario, the impact forces would at least be spread over a larger area. Maybe you could bring some nylon webbing and caribiners and make your own seat belt, too. If you're concerned about a post-crash fire (there was one in this case), maybe you might want to look at a PBE hood (another, more capable one here); on that, contact me and I'll share my opinions on the various distributors--some are more customer friendly than others. The fact of the matter is that rail transportation safety standards (and security standards!) don't measure up to the standards we've come to expect in aviation, for example. They ought to be, but they aren't, so it's up to you (caveat emptor!) to do what you think you need to do to ensure your own safety and survival, and that of your family and friends. It sucks to be unprepared and have to rely on those who either don't care enough to do what's right, or are not legally required to do what's right.

Yes, But . . .

Continuing on with the national debt issue, one thing you always here about is 'deficit reduction', and it's usually in a context that would suggest that deficit reduction should be our primary focus.

Yes, but . . . what about the national debt? Reducing the amount of the deficit sounds sorta good, but it misses the point: Unless you eliminate the deficit, by either cutting spending or increasing revenue through higher taxes, tarriffs, fees, etc., or both, we're still not living within our means. We're still getting deeper in debt, albeit at a slower rate. We've still have a nearly $15 trillion national debt.

I've posted this before: How much is $15 trillion? Well, if you managed to blow $1 million a day every single day since Christ was born, you'd finally spend $1 trillion sometime in the mid-28th century. And at that same rate, you'd finally spend the whole $15 trillion sometime around the year 43,000.

Even if we somehow trimmed the federal budget and raised taxes enough to generate a $100 billion/yr surplus, it would still take 150 years to pay off $15 trillion.

Yes, but . . . does paying off that debt matter?

If you've ever been unfortunate (or stupid) enough to fall for some of those 'payday' loan places, you'll know all about how they just love for you to pay off just the interest and 'refinance' your loan(s); sometimes they call it 'renewing' your loan. Either way, you just pay a "small" fee--usually the interest (at up to 240% APR) and they quit hounding you--for now. Until next week when your loan is due again. But the big thing for them is that they get another round of interest from you all over again. And again. And again. And again.

If we're not paying off the debt, we're just refinancing. Now, the US government has been one of the most 'credit-worthy' countries in the world for a long, long time, so we're not having to pay out 240% interest. But the principle still applies. If you don't pay off the debt, it never goes away. You never get out of debt. You just keep throwing money away on the interest.

I know. I've been there. I hate those payday loan places. And it's not a good place for our country to be.

Ya Got Trouble, And Way Beyond River City

"Well, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do not wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of a pool table in your community . . ." (From The Music Man, by Meredith Wilson)

Oh, I wish it was just the presence of a pool table.

It never ceases to amaze me how screwed up things have gotten, in that the media controls so much of American life (and I suspect it's not any better overseas). While this problem exists on many levels and on many topics, today I want to limit it to the United States national debt, the past, current, and future budget deficits, and how this ties into the huge train wreck that's coming.

First off, how big is the current US national debt? At the time of this writing, it's $14,485,006,000,000 (those 6 right-most digits change too fast to be accurate). That's just about $14.6 trillion dollars. (How much is that? If you were to spend $14,000,000 (that's $14 million, for those who don't like to count zeroes) every day since Christ was born, you still would not have spent that much.) This data is from the US National Debt Clock website.

I've tried to find data for FY2011, but with the 9 continuing resolutions that have been necessary to keep the federal government going because Congress refuses to do its job and pass an actual budget, it's kinda hard. Plus FY2011 isn't over yet, so actual receipts and expenditures are still up in the air. So I'll have to make do with FY2010 budget data.

First, it's important to understand the difference between mandatory spending and discretionary spending. Mandatory is, well, mandatory; it's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., plus interest in the national debt (also included in this is the payroll for Congress and the President--hands off their pay!). Discretionary spending is everything else: Department of Defense (meaning our military's payroll is subject to Congressional whims), the FBI, Homeland Security, the IRS, Departments of Education, Interior, Labor, Commerce, Agriculture, and all the rest.

Mandatory spending in FY2010 was $2.173 trillion dollars. Once again, this is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest, and other mandatory spending.

Discretionary spending in FY2010, for all the functions we think of when you say 'federal government', was $1.378 trillion.

Together these totallled $3.55 trillion. That was the outlay, the expenses.

Total revenue for FY2010 was $2.381 trillion. That's the income for the feds.

So, simple math (albeit using very large numbers, which, like they love to say, do not add due to rounding) shows the deficit, the amount we were in the hole and had to borrow, was $1.171 trillion. (Actually, if you do the math it comes out to $1.169 trillion, but what's $20 billion anyway?)

Now take a look at those figures:

Discretionary spending, FY2010: $1.378 trillion
Deficit, FY2010: $1.171 trillion

So, revenues, income for the federal government for 2010 just barely covered the mandatory spending, for the things that the feds are required to pay out. Or in other words, except for a paltry $207 billion, we had to borrow money to finance all other government operations.

So . . . if we were actually serious about creating a balanced federal budget, and making our government (supposedly of the people, by the people, and for the people) live within its means, but NOT raise taxes and NOT touch Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid (and you can't forget the interest on the national debt, either), the rest of the federal government would need to be eliminated. No Army/Navy/Air Force/Marines, no Coast Guard, no national parks, no Border Patrol, no FAA, no NTSB, no Homeland Security, no TSA, no NASA, no Pell Grants, no federal student loans, no VA, no food stamps/SNAP, no housing assistance, no IRS (well, that wouldn't be all that bad) . . . at least as far as what we know today. Somehow they'd all need to figure out how to operate on an 84% budget cut.

Or why don't we decide what to cut out of the discretionary spending to save $1.171 trillion.

Since it is apparently the public's intent that we no longer have any real interest in space exploration (based on the apathetic reaction of the public to Obama's scuttling of our manned space program), you might as well eliminate NASA. That'll save a whopping $18.7 billion. So if we eliminate NASA altogether we only need to cut an additional $1.153 trillion.

Since, when we come down to it, we really don't care all that much about the environment anyway (the US and Afghanistan are the only countries not to ratify the Kyoto Protocols), and since the EPA's rules just get in the way of business expansion (just listen to any Republican), let's eliminate them, too. That'll save $10.5 billion. Only $1.143 trillion to go!

Everybody hates all the money we're giving to countries that hate us anyway, all that foreign aid. Billions and billions and billions going overseas when we have people out of work here at home. Well, that's in the State Department budget (at least most of it); we don't like foreigners anyway, so let's do away with the State Department. Big money there--a whopping $51.7 billion! So now we're down to just needing to cut another $1.091 trillion.

How about the Department of Transportation? What do they do, anyway? Well, the FAA belongs to them; we can trust the airlines to run their own businesses without any of that nasty federal government oversight, and besides one of their basic tenets to keep airplanes from crashing into each other has been 'see and avoid'--which they do anyway. First plane to land wins! They also have the NTSB, but who cares about them (the FAA doesn't, at least not much). So, let's get rid of DOT! There's another $72.5 billion . . . and so we're down to $1.020 trillion (that rounding thing again).

How about Education? The states having the feds looking over their shoulders; and higher education is already pricing itself out of reach for most of our middle class anyway, so cutting Department of Education will only accelerate that process. We need to become a nation of high-class elitists and low-class unwashed, uneducated peons anyway--that's the way to success! And it'll save us another $46.7 billion, and now we're down to under a trilllion left to save--$973.3 billion to go!

Let's speed the process a little here. Department of Homeland Security--we hate those people anyway, with all their 'pat-downs' and crap; besides, didn't we kill bin Laden? Al Qaeda's not a threat anymore, so let's get rid of Homeland Security--$42.7 billion. Department of Energy? Who cares? Let the powerplants run; big business always has our best interests at heart anyway. That'll save another $26.3 billion. Department of Labor? They're just another hold-over from the commie/pinko 'labor movement' era, and who needs unions anyway? Like I said, big business always has our best interests in mind, so kill the Department of Labor, and we save another $13.3 billion. Also at a potential savings of $13.3 billion is the Department of the Treasury, and that includes the IRS, and everybody hates them, so kill them off too. Together these four cuts will save $95.6 billion, which brings us down to $877.7 billion to go.

Department of Agriculture? We need to end all those subsidies anyway; subsidies are the antithesis of a free market economy; the government should never have gotten involved in that anyway. Savings: $26 billion. Housing and Urban Development? Who cares? Let things develop naturally, and that'll save us $47.5 billion. Health and Human Services? Oooh, smacks of 'Obamacare' and 'socialized medicine' . . . Quick!! Kill it now! We can save $78.7 billion right there! These three total $152.2 billion, and that means we only have $725.5 billion to go.

The VA? Their budget is $52.5 billion. Well, we let big business reneg on their obligations to their employees, let them plunder their pension plans and slash retirees' medical care, so what makes our nation's veterans think they're special? Cut them loose, and we're down to $673 billion to go (not quite halfway).

Bunch of little ones next: Small Business Administration (small businesses? Who cares? If they're any good they just get bought out by big businesses), Department of Commerce (what do they do anyway?), National Science Foundation (like we need more science or innovation . . .), Department of the Interior (they just get in the way with all their 'tree-hugger' crap--log all the forests! Drill all the oil wells! Who cares what's left for future generations!), Army Corps of Engineers (their levees and dams are all just gonna fail eventually anyway), the General Services Administration (well, this one at least makes sense--if we're going to cut all these other departments, we won't need GSA, will we?), and the reserve for natural disasters (so what if some podunk town gets wiped out by a tornado? Sucks to be them! Besides, that's why we have the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and all those other bleeding hearts). We're talking about balancing the budget here! You've got to look at the big picture! All these add up to another $50.2 billion! Cut them all and we're down to $622.8 billion to go.

Oh, wait, DOJ! Department of Justice! Yeah, can't forget them. What kind of justice system do we have when people like O.J. Simpson and Casey Anthony can go free, anyway? And the FBI just gets in the way of business, 'legitimate' businesses (just ask the Mafia; they're all legit), and the free exercise of political rights (like bribery of members of Congress). So get rid of them; they're nowhere near as good as the folks on "NCIS" or "Law and Order", anyway. Savings: $23.9 billion, and we're down to $598.9 billion.

And that's pretty much about it . . . except for the biggest of the bunch, the Department of Defense. Since their budget in FY2010 was $663.7 billion, we can cut the remainder of the deficit right here, and still have $64.8 billion to fund the military. Well, we never should have been in Afghanistan and Iraq anyway, and we can just pull out of there and leave them to their fates (like we did with South Vietnam!). Yeah, yeah, foreign policy disaster and all that, but we've got to balance the budget! And we can't touch Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid, and can't raise taxes--not even to close loopholes for billionaires! Who cares if the Taliban take over again in Afghanistan? They didn't do all that bad the first time, and besides, we killed bin Laden; Al Qaeda's no longer a threat anyway. Just let the Iranians take over Iraq; they're the most peace-loving government in the region anyway (at least as long as everyone gives them what they want--and who are we to judge?).

Now, having thrown most of the 4 million federal workers out of their jobs, tax revenues are going to suffer, so we might need to eliminate the rest of the military, too. And since those 4 million federal workers pay their bills, eat food, drive cars, etc., that'll affect probably another 12 million jobs, but hey! at least we balanced the budget! And we didn't raise taxes or cut Social Security!

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The fact of the matter is that if we were to attempt to cut all classes of federal spending--including the mandatory ones--enough to balance the budget without raising taxes, all federal agencies would need to take a 35% budget cut. How many of our seniors who live on Social Security could take a 35% cut in what they get every month? It'd be a double whammy for them, since nearly all are also on Medicare.

And above all, don't fall for the politicians' crap about how this or that will save "$500 billion" because there's alway a caveat of "over 10 years" that they either leave unsaid or leave in the fine print. Those cuts would be only a few billion this year, and bigger cuts in later years--except those bigger cuts won't happen; it'll just be in the future where they can eliminate those cuts without anyone noticing.

Finally, and returning to what I was originally talking about before I drifted off to indulge in a sarcastic tirade of 'budget cuts', the point is that the media--and the politicians--are not talking about any of this. They're just doing their usual sound bites and 'news as entertainment' crap, when the real issues are not reported, or not reported in full. Just a coincidence? I don't think so.