So, where should we cut spending?

I don't know, Haven. You can have air supremacy, but you still got to have boots on the ground. The Navy and Air Force can't do that. And those boots got to have tanks.

How about some of these?

Mining - Every year, gold, silver and other mining companies (many of them foreign-owned) extract an estimated $3.6 billion of minerals from public lands while paying nothing to the federal treasury. Under the archaic Mining Law of 1872, mining companies can purchase these lands for $2.50 or $5.00 per acre. Last year, the Interior Secretary sold public land containing $10 billion worth of gold for less than $6,000. Adding insult to injury, taxpayers are often left footing the bill for expensive cleanup of the cyanide, arsenic and other wastes left behind.

Nuclear - No commercial nuclear power plant has been built since 1973. As the nation struggles to deal with the thousands of tons of highly radioactive, lethal wastes generated from existing nuclear power plants, the nuclear industry receives an estimated $10.5 billion in subsidies from U.S. taxpayers. One particularly outrageous taxpayer handout is the Advanced Light Water Reactor program, which gives millions of dollars to General Electric and Westinghouse to develop new reactors for which there is no market in the United States.

Agriculture - Sugar cane production has ravaged the Florida Everglades. Poor farming practices have polluted lakes, rivers and groudwater with pesticides and fertilizers. Yet agribusiness receives over $10 billion annually in taxpayer subsidies. One of the more outrageous handouts is the $110-million-a-year Market Promotion Program which pays large pesticide-intensive companies like Gallo Wines and Sunkist to advertise their products overseas.

Coal - Coal is the number one cause of acid rain and a major contributor to global warming. Despite these environmental problems, the $28 billion-a-year coal industry receives an estimated $8 billion in annual taxpayer handouts. The federal government currently funds research and development of an extremely uneconomical technology to liquefy and gasify coal. It also funds the $2.2 billion so-called "Clean Coal" Technology Program, which has been criticized by the General Accounting Office for wasting taxpayer dollars.

Ranching - Large companies like Anheuser-Busch and Union Oil Company as well as multimillionaire "wingtip cowboys" (including one who has permits to graze on public lands the size of Massachusetts) graze cattle on public lands for less than one-fifth of what they pay on private lands. Taxpayers lose over $52 million per year just in the management costs of the grazing program.

Timber - The U.S. Forest Service subsidizes the timber industry's efforts to cut down our national forests. According to the General Accounting Office, taxpayers lost an estimated $995 million in below-cost timber sales (in one two year period).

Oil and Gas - Taxpayers are breathing polluted air from burning fossil fuels while the oil and gas industry receives an annual $550 million tax break from the federal government.


Of course, I'm sure the Republicans will just follow the old 'deficits are good' plan, rather than cutting things like defense.

These two are good, although small...Among the other projects funded are a $50,000 tattoo-removal program in San Luis Obispo, Calif., and a $450,000 appropriation to restore chimneys on Cumberland Island in Georgia.

Or how about we cut funding for the War on Drugs.

 

I have 6,000$ - where can I sign up?

Do you have any links for your facts? (no offense)

 

Greenscissors.org

It lists 78 programs/projects that can be cut, a selection of which I listed above. The tatoo and the chimney thing I just saw in some article.

Here are some others...

· Beach Renourishment-Increasing the local cost-share for communities benefiting from the Army Corps of Engineers sand pumping activities would save $3 billion over the lifetime of the projects.

· Bonneville Power Administration Borrowing Authority-Congress should reject Bonneville Power's request to increase its federal borrowing authority by $700 million.

· Indianapolis-to-Evansville (I-69) Highway-Blocking federal funding for this road could save taxpayers $910 million.

· Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency-Eliminating government subsidies for environmentally destructive projects overseas would save taxpayers $11 million.

· Petroleum Research and Development- Eliminating the petroleum and coal research programs, which benefit large, profitable fossil fuel companies, would save almost $1.3 billion over five years and reduce subsidies that encourage global warming.

· Timber Roads Construction- Cutting funding for construction, planning and design on new logging roads, saving taxpayers $311.5 million.

· Yucca Mountain High-Level Waste Facility-Shelving the Yucca Mountain Project would relieve taxpayers from subsidizing this $56 billion program.

· Dallas Floodway Extension-Denying funding for this project, which will fail to improve flood protection for Dallas, would save taxpayers $76 million.

· Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project- Deauthorizing this outdated irrigation project would save taxpayers $319 million.

· Individual Fishing Quotas-Adopting national standards on new quota programs could prevent the give-away of $15 billion worth of fisheries as well as protect against over-fishing.

· Savannah Harbor Expansion-Denying funding for this redundant and environmentally destructive harbor deepening project would save taxpayers $230 million.

· Superfund Reauthorization-Reauthorizing the Superfund tax would eliminate a $4 million-per-day tax break and ensure that toxic waste sites are cleaned up at the expense of the polluters-not taxpayers.

 

I think we can save a lot of money by cutting federal funding to education and welfare. Let's privatize education, and that will stimulate corporate profits in the mid-term because the citizenry will be educated by the private sector in the specific tasks and areas that will help the corporations.

Sincerely,
The Devil, with some ironic collaboration from elements of the far right.

 

HayesStreet--
You seem to have plucked something out of an environmentalist magazine and pasted it in as your own thoughts. I have done extensive work for the minerals extraction industries and can help you correct a few of your errors:

1) Federal land sales are held periodically using public auctions. The land is sold for a market price.
2) Minerals extracted in Western states such as Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona are subject to a 12.5% royalty payable to the federal government or state government (whichever owns the land) based on a market price of what is extracted.
3) Coal and nuclear energy are the cheapest methods to turn turbines which generate electricity (hydro is also cheap but access is limited). Eliminating or restricting access to these two resources impacts every electricity bill in the country.
4) Your oil and gas policies will further increase our dependence on the unstable Middle East region.

You have done a good job at listing environmentalist complaints, but realistically this will take more money out of the economy, not provide savings.

I remain a proponent of deficit spending.

 

I'm with TJ (did i just say that?)...let's deficit spend.

 

Nuclear power is the cheapest form of generation. It is the most *efficient* industry within the energy sector.

 

I don't know about this. I know too many disadvantaged people who have gone into service and come out changed for the better. More disciplined, more focused, and more in control of their lives. The G.I. Bill helping them with further education didn't seem to hurt them either.

It's seems to me that the armed forces....for many people......is the only welfare program that actually works.

 

Actually I cited the list in my last post.

Gee, that would make you and unbiased observer ...

I don't believe the 'market price' includes anything that is adjusted for the minerals removed, nor is it adjusted for the cleanup afterwards. Not sure about the 12.5% royalty. If you want to cite something that contradicts Greenscissors, then do so.

Continuing to enact policies that tie the economy to harmful and expensive energy sources like petroleum, coal, and nuclear power, will only hurt us. Considering that most, if not all, of these subsidies are given to PROFITABLE companies means that your 'higher electric bill' argument is a red herring thrown out by the industries to continue receiving cash.

And MY oil and gas policies would remove the Middle East completely from the equation.

Oh I forgot. If we have eco-friendly policies, the economy will crash. Well, how about we start factoring in all the cleanup costs from mines and dumps, all the restoration costs from acid rain, all the health costs from bad air, all the BILLIONS we are paying for global warming with its super hurricanes and its droughts, and the billions in defense to pay for your oil. YOUR energy policy is far more detrimental to the economy. You are just too shortsighted to see it.

What a shock. I think I predicted this in my first post.

 

If that's true then what's the point? The government takes money from us to give to the energy companies who give it to us? Charge us real rates for the cost of the energy and you can bet our movement to alternatives would be a lot further along than it is now.

Absolutely, policies like those favored by TJ only lock us into older and less efficient and finite and environmentally destructive energy sources.

I find it a strange contradiction that Republicans talk about wanting to give money back to the people, and then take money from the people to give to thier corporate handlers, like the petroleum and coal industry. Makes no sense.

 

No...but it would make it so he knows more about what really goes on in the industry than most of us here.

People paying higher rates at the gas pump isn't good for getting re-elected.

This stuff started a LONG time ago...when Democrats were in control of both houses of Congress. This isn't some new and evil Republican initiative.

 

From the Peabody Energy 2001 10-K:

We have numerous federal coal leases that are administered by the Department of the Interior under the Federal Coal Leasing Amendments Act of 1976. These leases cover our principal reserves in Wyoming and other reserves in Montana and Colorado. Each of these leases continues indefinitely, provided there is diligent development of the property and continued operation of the related mine or mines. The Bureau of Land Management has asserted the right to adjust the terms and conditions of these leases, including rent and royalties, after the first 20 years of their term and at 10-year intervals thereafter. Annual rents under our federal coal leases are now set at $3.08 per acre. Production royalties on federal leases are set by statute at 12.5% of the gross proceeds of coal mined and sold for surface-mined coal and 8% for underground-mined coal. The federal government limits by statute the amount of federal land that may be leased by any company and its affiliates at any time to 75,000 acres in any one state and 150,000 acres nationwide. As of December 31, 2001, we leased or had applied to lease 26,249 acres of federal land in Colorado, 10,322 acres in Montana and 30,225 acres in Wyoming, for a total of 66,796 nationwide.

The word you are looking for is "reclamation". Reclamation is the name for cleaning up your mine location when you are done mining. Reclamation costs are paid by the permit holder. Mining can not take place without a permit from the government.

You're having a very bad day. It just got worse.

 

I say we cut wasteful spending on the arts. No more art grants and stupid crap like that. What the hell does the government have to do with that stuff?

And all of the tree hugging crap should be handled by private parties.

 

i vote they get rid of all arts grants...except to those artists who write songs about really tall Chinese basketball players.

 

On deficit spending:

Perhaps a naive question, but as long as it's actually GOOD for the ecomony, any reason we don't use some of that good deficit spending on feeding hungry people? Or public housing? Or health care? Not trying to be facetious here. I just don't get how social programs come from tax-and-spending while military spending which busts the budget (even on obsolete weapons like the B-2 bomber) is good for the economy.

On arts funding:

Arts funding has already been cut dramatically in this country. The average American spends less than $.50 a year on the NEA and the NEA no longer offers grants to individual artists. Further, the grants they still offer all have some sort of "good deed" element -- they need to serve the underserved in some way, provide after school programs, etc. The amount granted to art for the sake of art is negligible.

Couple that with the cuts to arts education in public schools and you've already gotten your wish. The government's no longer in the arts game. In fact, under Thatcher, the British government followed America's lead, drastically cutting subsidies to artists. Sir Peter Hall, founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, bemoans this fact and makes great arguments for subsidies in his book The Necessary Theatre. This shift in England was unprecedented in its history and was justified by the American system of capitalism in the arts.

Just remember that an end to public support of the arts signals an end to the arts. I'm actually fine with that as long as the public understands that that's the case and supports it. Virtually every important movement in the arts has come from public subsidy though. From Shakespeare to Mozart to Michaelangelo. But if the public's had enough art, I won't argue.

 

Good point. When the public wants art, art will be created. The gub'mint don't need to git involved. Same with music.