The Unprecedented Intensity of the YouCut Movement
Two weeks ago, the House Republican Economic Recovery Working Group launched YouCut, an initiative that allows people to get involved in their government like never before.
Before we launched the project, I knew that the American people were fed up with the size of government and the culture of spending that has become the norm in Washington. What I didn’t fully anticipate, however, was the level of grassroots intensity that YouCut elicited. During the first week of the project, our website averaged more than 3,000 votes cast an hour and a total of 281,000 votes cast. Since that time, the intensity surrounding the project has not dissipated.
Currently, more than 500,000 votes have been cast and 30,000 people have emailed spending reduction ideas of their own. While these numbers have been incredibly encouraging, what’s been even more assuring is where these votes have been coming from: less than one percent originated from inside the beltway.
YouCut is a citizen movement, completely organic and undeniable. It has struck a chord with folks all across America fed up with leaders in Washington who turn a deaf ear to their concerns. As families have been forced to cut back and make tough choices out of necessity, they look towards Washington — where the exact opposite attitude persists. The Democrat majority in the House, for instance, will likely fail this year to pass a budget resolution for the first time since the modern budget rules were adopted in 1974.
An utter failure in leadership.
We need this in Canada. We would call it “CanCut”.
Why not fire 20% of the federal work force and reverse union rights for federal employees. How about put that up for the next vote.
I agree!
THANK YOU!!
I don’t like overstatement but I do feel strongly about this. I hadn’t heard about this initiative before, but it seems like a really good idea! I’ve seen a few nay-saying websites encouraging people to vote against anything Republicans feel strongly about. But there’s nothing that prevents anyone of any political persuasion from voting or adding their ideas… and that is a GOOD IDEA! This is one of the best examples I’ve seen to refute the claim that Republicans have no new ideas. I’m just surprised that it hasn’t been done sooner.
Saving money is good, earning money is better; The Federal government
needs to stop opposing the creation of wealth, and start rewarding it, with
tax cuts, exemptions from regulation, and prizes for performance to those
who supply solutions to economic problems euch as housing, energy, transport…
Keep Up The Great Work
The average citizen has little idea of what is in the Federal budget and I must confess to a severe lack for my part. I doubt I could offer much in the way of ideas to cut specifics in the budget.
But I do know one place you could start – go after those cushy Federal civil service retirement plans – and start with your own. How in hell congress figures they are so worthy of such retirement largess is beyond me – and most other Americans as well. The founding fathers had this idea of the citizen lawmaker who would serve a few terms – then go back to their business at home and earn their retirement there. That idea has fallen by the wayside as power-grabbing lawmakers ensconce themselves in the security of Federal dollars – compliments of the taxpayers.
At one time it was considered a sacrifice to be a civil servant in our country. No more – now its like hitting the jackpot for someone to get on the civil servant rolls.
Another area for budget cuts is some of the more recent Federal bureaucracies such as the Dept of Education. Its moronic to send a dollar to DC and get $.50 (give or take) back with the insult of being told how to spend it.
Oh – want to save Americans HUGE money? Scrap the EPA. Their carbon emissions plan is potentially the most onerous bureaucratic scheme ever devised. All the progressives see is $ signs when they talk about this one. Trouble is the $s come from average Americans.
And last but not least — TERM LIMITS — this would include ALL elected offices – local state and federal.
Take a few days off and visit a Tea Party gathering or two and you’ll get some ideas.
Don’t be surprised if you get an earful.
This is a great idea. I think it is kind of ironic that the Republicans are doing this since Obama was the one who promised this kind of digital participation in politics.
Congressman, this YouCut project is both noble and trivial. Noble in its sincere attempt to cut spending; trivial in its eventual effect. I have been to the YouCut site through numerous websites and have read hundreds of comments. The vast majority of those comments request the elimination of entire federal departments: Education, Environment, HHS, HUD, etc. You name it. The list goes on. Or in many many cases the comments demand across the board cuts in spending of up to 20%.
You did not mention these comments in your column. That is a sign that you and other career politicians inside the beltway STILL have no idea what is coming at you in November (and many years thereafter) and the subsequent demands that will be placed on you to pull this country back from economic collapse.
For the most part, you’re an upstanding conservative, but this YouCut thing is nothing more than chewing around the edges – and we see through it. After Nov. the voters will take you by the hand and guide you right into the heart of the problem (with screaming liberals all around), and you better be ready to take that journey.
Thomas Grady, Founder
Missouri Sovereignty Project
When conservatives are once again in the majority, then they’ll be able to make the kind of gigantic cuts you’re talking about (and with which I agree).
If families can make bit-by-bit differences in their budgets by not buying $5 lattes, eating out less often, and taking cheaper staycations, we can surely do the same for the country’s budget.
I’ll take a $2 Billion savings any day of the week!
Reform has to start somewhere, Mr. Cantor, and I’m proud to hear your clear Virginia accent every time you’re on TV.
However, for this effort to amount to much, it needs to become YouReFactor.
The problems of the country are rooted in the Federal government undertaking non-Federal tasking.
Leaving the structural problems of Federal over-reach in place reduces YouCut to an act of Progressive weed-top-removal.
Good going! It is true that the impact of a successful cut initiated through the YouCut process may not be very large in proportion to the sorry bottom line, but it is also true that the spectacular performance of YouCut.com nevertheless demonstrates the possibility of bills passed simply because there is a plain statement of popular support behind them. Under normal circumstances, the channeling of national sentiment through the legislative function would be performed by the President, the only US official chosen by a national ballot.
But somehow, today’s President seems obsessed with other pursuits, which he cannot inspire us to partake in, in spite of a legendary eloquence soaring to the leg-thrilling stratosphere of some quacks of precarious repute at MSNBC. Next time we get a President, if we do a better job of choosing one, he or she will be competent enough to render the YouCut initiative unnecessary, as it should be. This is very much like the recent Arizona bill: If the Feds were doing their job, it would not be needed. It’s pretty sad when our only recourse is to shame the leaders who are AWOL.
In the meantime my three cheers for YouCut, Eric Cantor, Michelle Bachmann, and the many visitors of YouCut!
Granted, I have no idea what is in the federal budget but the one thing no one has proposed is ‘cut every damn expenditure by 15%’. All the oxes get gored at once, money gets saved, and it’s not like asking them to do something that millions of citizens haven’t had to do during the last two years or so.
Joe, President Reagan implemented something like that and discovered how loud each interest group will scream when their goodie is threatened by so much as a little nick. (Game it out for yourself, Joe. The cost to an interest group for mobilizing its base to whimper is exactly the same as for mobilizing ‘em to scream bloody murder.)
The political pressure of every interest group in opposition to across-the-board cuts was just too intense. Reagan, who campaigned on cutting back government and closing entire cabinet departments ended up presiding over a whopping growth in the federal government.
After the lesson of the Reagan presidency, Milton Friedman suggested that budget cutters avoid antagonizing every interest group simultaneously. He suggested that instead of fighting a losing political battle for across-the-board cuts, a small number of programs should be targeted for outright elimination. Their interest groups will scream, sure, but the pressure from a few interest groups might be more easily withstood and the cuts passed. The biggest advantage is what happens a year or two later. With the interest-group goodie abolished, the interest group most likely fades away never to be there to apply political pressure again.
You Cut is a cute idea, BUT the truth is, YOU CAN’T CUT ANYTHING until you cut off the Income Tax which simply TAKES what they want, and then spends until it’s gone. A federal “budget” is meaningless if they can take without asking, and borrow without indenture. They have YOUR credit card, and are stealing your identity — and you can’t tell them to stop. You vote them out, and the next bunch just continues the same organized theft.
Now FairTax is a switch from taxing productivity to taxing spending. A great idea that let’s US boycott the government. BUT it REPLACES Dollar for Dollar the money the government now gets. NOT the ideal. BUT, It HAS to be that way, or it would never see daylight. FairTax doesn’t waste it’s breath on cutting taxes—Y-E-T. What you get with FairTax is the ability to monitor and squeeze out waste by keeping the government’s pockets nearly empty.
So, we start with a 23% tax to bring Social Security/Medicare back under our control, and as the economy responds –lower the rate! The ideal rate being around 10% and no money to make “social engineering” programs or pay lobbyists. AND, you get control of the whole process with every purchase, PLUS your vote! Other plans SOUND GOOD, with a low rate now, but when the government wants, they just renig on the rate, and you get shafted AGAIN. A FLAT TAX is just “flattery”, making you think something is changed when nothing is. SO, FairTax isn’t ABOUT tax CUTS, it’s all about cutting of the head of the beast that is strangling you and is about to swallow you whole! That’s why they call it FUNDAMENTAL tax reform, because it REFORMS who is in control of YOUR MONEY! Please logon to http://www.FairTax.org and study the bill, not the blogs which are run by the Income Taxing lobby. For them, they will give you anything –so long as it is The Income Tax by which they control everything from the womb to the tomb!
There are two approaches to budgeting. One is to list what you want to accomplish and then go out and get the money to pay for it. The other is to count up the revenue receipts and then divvy the money up among different needs and programs. As many have said (at least until the recession): the deficit isn’t a revenue deficit but an expenditure deficit. Reining in the budget is a matter of choosing which of these two principles to follow. All of the supporters of Obamacare, every last one, argued that it was the right, compassionate, moral, enlightened thing to do. Those arguments followed the first principle, stating a purpose and raising the money for it. By the same token, proponents of defense expenditures–especially war expenditures–often make the same case, as do supporters of entitlement programs.
Very few legislators or administrators at the federal level follow the “count the money and then divide it” approach. But states do, mainly because they are required to by law to balance their budgets. As Gov. Christie said to the teacher at the town hall meeting, the state cannot print money like the federal government can. It has to live within its means.
An “earmark” is a way for a member of Congress to set aside part of a discretionary appropriation for a specific reason. It’s not an add-on to the bill. It’s just a way to direct the president to spend money on X or Y project.
Well, if that’s so, and if it’s also true that the president cannot refuse to spend money appropriated by Congress (a SCOTUS ruling from the Nixon years, IIRC), then I propose creating a new category of “markups” to the bill called “ear-cuts,” by which a member of Congress specifically designates amounts of money in various spending bills NOT to be spent. That way, the Congress is directing the President not to spend the money and thus would pass SCOTUC muster.
It may be true that the first two cuts are relatively trivial, but a long time ago, when the budget was only about $100 billion, a Republican Senator, Everett Dirksen, said “a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” You gotta start somewhere.
I’m as conservative as they get, but one of my first choices would be military bases in Western Europe. All they’ve done since the Wall fell is allow the Euro socialists to continue to free ride on our defense umbrella. They just took the savings to prop up their now-collapsing socialist states, which the leftists here have been pointing to for decades as the “model” that “proves” how well socialism “works”, and justify the vast expansion of federal power and more freebies for the parasite classes.
Let them fund their own militaries, and see how long cradle-to-grave free everything really lasts. Hell, they don’t even want to protect themselves from being taken over from within by Muslims, let alone defend themselves against newly aggressive external threats from Russia and Iran.
Japan is rich enough to afford their own defense now too.
I’ll bet there’s a couple hundred billion a year right there.
I do hope the Republicans are just using this as a marketing campaign and aren’t planning to really make political decisions based on the junk hits generated on web page tools misnamed “polls”.
“One Man One Vote” is too important to equate legitimate voting with the uber-manipulable “give me one program script-writing freshman and I’ll give you a million unique-id’ed votes an hour (or posts or credit card donations)” traffic generating features of the internet.
These sites may be great PR for showing that Republicans can play the New Media game too but no one working for you is going to build in the kind of serious honesty that might legitimatize something like this.
Speaking of, when are we going to get full investigations and court rulings to prevent the kind of unlimited unreported unlawful foreign internet campaign contribution abuse we saw in the last presidential campaign? Not planning to leave that unattended like our other borders, I hope? Now that is a New Media effort that conservatives (and those who care about the spirit of the law) should be visibly engaging.
And last but not least — TERM LIMITS — this would include ALL elected offices – local state and federal.
And not just elected officials, but term limits for everyone in government, including (especially) the bureaucrats. And institute a requirement that everyone who’s appointed to such a bureaucracy or elected to office must have first served a minimum of five years in the private sector. That way we could, you know, have people in Washington who had actually done something before being appointed/elected.
The political pressure of every interest group in opposition to across-the-board cuts was just too intense. Reagan, who campaigned on cutting back government and closing entire cabinet departments ended up presiding over a whopping growth in the federal government.
This is another reason why term limits would be a great idea. If elected officials didn’t have to worry about running for office, they could more easily find the courage to do these cuts. Screw the interest groups; let them raise their own damn money if their cause is so important.
Say a citizen has crippling debts but also vast assets. He is obligated, legally and morally, to liquidate what he can to satisfy his creditors. Gee, if only the Feds had lands and treasures that weren’t necessary to execute the duties AND ONLY THOSE DUTIES specified by the Constitution.
I know, saying federal social redistribution programs were never Constitutional is too hardcore for most folks these days. But I do recommend Rep. Cantor and others personalize this debt, ie. what would we require of people who keep spending beyond their income? If you won’t cut back, then its time to hock Grandma’s silverware.
Or in this case, most of the Smithsonian’s contents, a few hundred thousand square miles of land, etc. Or is possession of the Hope Diamond somehow required by the Constitution?
Let’s put real cutting power in the hands of the people.
Proposed: 1. The head of each government department is nationally elected every 2 years.
2. The option “Eliminate the department of ___” is included in each election.
3. If “Eliminate” is chosen by > 50% then the departments budget is reduced by the percentage that voted for “Eliminate”
4. If “Eliminate” wins 3 elections in a row the department is eliminated.
The old time gold miners used to say, “you look after your fine gold and the coarse gold will look after itself”. I think this few billions saved is a huge start in the financial realn. How did we get to the point where a billion seems trivial?
Cantor should focus on doing these things and stop with the BS of asking people.These measures are common sense,so get off the web and fight in congress to get it done Cantor.I see these republicans all giddy thinking they will take back power this fall.Here they are doing stuff like this,acting like they are already in power.Cantor should concentrate on taking back the house and keeping his stupid job first.Get power back then(we will see my guess this website disapear)ask this crap when you can do these things.Instead of asking before hand when you cant.I will see as usual if they do get power again another,get lost now response.These politicians all need to be fired.That includes every single stupid republican.These guys had their chance to stand up and say no to wasteful earmarks.Instead they joined the dem porkers loading up on pet projects.Now here is Cantor saying what should we cut?What a complete joke he is!Americans should start a website called your fired in response to you cut.Throw all the bumbs out,that includes every single republican incumbant as well America.In my opinion they are no better period than the dems.America needs a clean sweep new blood,not these old corrupt smooth talkers who only look at you before elections.
Any attempt to reduce spending is appreciated,but… If you have to ask what to cut then you need to be of the next bus out of town, and don’t come back. This budget cut is like someone drowning and you passing out thimbles to dip the water out of the pool.
Entire department need to be eliminated. You can start with the department of education, then department of energy, then keep going until you are back to what the constitution says you should be doing.
Let’s cut this before it is even born:
Nutty Alan Grayson is proposing a new mandate on businesses: mandatory paid vacation for everybody.
Because Euro sociaists do it.
Because America is not fair.
Because Orlando is in his district?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/30/sunday/main6532472.shtml
I say, to the Dungeon with them all and clean the Ditches because the Guillotine will be very busy.
A new French Revolution in America. Hear Hear Hear
Apparently the Moderator needs to be Moderated.
This is a great idea. As an analyst for the federal government for 32 years, I can tell you that there are so many programs that could be cut and and unfunded that would never be missed. Once the government did away with the “equal pay for equal work” salaries sky rocketed (moved away from the 10 step salary chart). Until you are able to hire good employees and fire the bad ones, there will always be a tremendous waste in that area. Positions have been bloated and overpaid, misclassified in order to pay a person the boss likes more money even if the job doesn’t warrant it. There is so much wrong with the hiring and firing system, the bogus EEO complaint payouts just to avoid going to court because of how much it cost to defend yourself, abuse of sick leave, abuse of administrative leave, and downright abuse of the generous workers compensation program that is rarely monitored locally, money is being wasted just like the gulf oil spill. There is so much wrong with the civil service system because of people being promoted over their knowledge and talent level just to get them out of your office, that every program needs to be fixed. By the way, using Lean Six Sigma is a joke, it doesn’t work, people are just filling in the blanks to get the answer that they want. I could go on forever about the waste, fraud and abuse, but I won’t. After bringing all of this to the attention of the major claimants for 20 years, it just upsets me more knowing that no one wants to really do the right thing for fear of being called a racist.
My suggestion for Social Security.
Plan to phase it out by:
1. Allowing those under the age of 40 to opt out with reduced benefits upon retirement. They can then take (they MUST) their normal FICA contributio to fund their own 401k or such. The Company will match that up to 3%. Separately, the company then only has to pay 3% to the government on those “opted” out employees until social security is finally eliminated. In that way the employer is not paying any more than they are now with the FICA match. The employee has their own 401k type investment and the company assists.
2. Those under the age of 30 have no social security option and thus are opted out completely; they get 3% match by their company into any 401k vehicle to which their (Previous) FICA contribution is deposited. They MUST contribute at the same levels of contribution that FICA was….This gives them a 10% contribution into a 401k type fund – guaranteed income (GIC) when you include their contribution and the company’s. This is their retirement vehicle; no loans, no borrowing.
3. Those over the age of 40 can stay in the system in full as it is now until their retirement age through end of life.
By the year 2070, all people will be out of the social security system and there will be more Ponzi social security scheme.
Medicare can continue. Less people to administrate social security, no more concerns about it going broke after so many contributed.
I have some ideas for cuts.
1. Make ALL federal employees take a 30% pay CUT! My sister works for a commercial printer and just to keep the doors open, all the employees had to undergo 2 pay cuts within the year equaling 30%! And restoration of salaries is nowhere in sight. Anything the private sector endures or suffers should be felt FIRST at the federal government level.
2. No federal employee should EVER make MORE than a comparable position in the private sector. Parity should take place immediately. Imagine what we could save with that!
3. Eliminate totally ANY federal employee union. Just working for the federal government by its very nature is akin to being in a union. It is a massive conflict of interest and they all should be disbanded and eliminated. It should not be profitable to work for the government!