Yesterday it was reported that Stephanie Herseth was blasting the president’s budget for being injurious to rural America.
"Rural America is being taken
for granted by this budget, and it's being taken advantage of," Herseth
said. She is co-leader of the House Democratic Rural Working Group, which
conducted the analysis.
Bush's proposed cuts would have a negative effect on rural economic
development, rural housing loans, education and health issues, according to the
group's report. But the most devastating hit would be a $5.7 billion reduction
in funding for farm programs during the next 10 years, the report said.
Today, funny enough, Herseth is under fire for not getting “enough” highway funding for South Dakota. It seems to me that anyone who criticizes George Bush for his plans to rein in spending owes it to use to say exactly how they would reduce the size of the federal deficit. Heresth’s problem is that her party really has no plan this side of raising taxes. This, it seems to me, is the problem of modern government. Given that the Progressive view of unlimited government has long since replaced the founding view of limited government there is no principled way of arguing over federal spending. Given that most believe there is no project that is automatically out of bounds because the Constitution doesn’t give Congress the power to appropriate money for that particular purpose, it means that every piece of federal spending has some legitimacy. The problem becomes one of collective action. There are thousands of groups, such as the House Democratic Rural Working Group, advocating for the protection of government spending and likely for increased spending, but there is no group that is against government spending. The fact is that if we are serious about controlling government spending, every congressman in the Union will have some complaint and will resist holding the line on the spending that is “absolutely crucial” this his or her district. I note my post below. When your neighboring district gets government money it is the triumph of “special interests.” When your district gets government money it is “desperately needed federal spending.” What’s the solution? Just give everybody all the money they want, and run up $400 billion a year deficits. And yes, both parties are to blame.
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