Another spam chain e-mail day! This one from someone who is apparently far too ignorant to understand what a budget is (and isn't) , far too lazy to check facts, and far too Far Right to care.
The e-mail has a picture of Congressman Paul Ryan, handsome dude that he is, at the top and then proceeds, and I'll cut this, where appropriate, for brevity: Note the highlighted and multi-asterisked line items are perennial Far Right targets.
"PAUL RYAN'S PROPOSED BUDGET CUTS"
A List of Republican Budget Cuts
Notice S.S. and the military are NOT on this list.
These are all the programs that the new Republican House has proposed cutting.
Read to the end.
* Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy -- $445 million annual savings. **** (why should kids learn their letter?)
* Save America 's Treasures Program -- $25 million annual savings. ****
* International Fund for Ireland -- $17 million annual savings.
* Legal Services Corporation -- $420 million annual savings.
* National Endowment for the Arts -- $167.5 million annual savings. **** (Yeah, who needs Art?)
* National Endowment for the Humanities -- $167.5 million annual savings. **** (see above!)
* Hope VI Program -- $250 million annual savings.
* Amtrak Subsidies -- $1.565 billion annual savings.
* Eliminate duplicating education programs -- H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon , eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.
* U..S. Trade Development Agency -- $55 million annual savings.
* Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy -- $20 million annual savings.
* Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding -- $47 million annual savings.
* John C. Stennis Center Subsidy -- $430,000 annual savings.
* Community Development Fund -- $4.5 billion annual savings.
* Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid -- $24 million annual savings. ****
* Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half -- $7.5 billion annual savings
* Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20% -- $600 million annual savings.
* Essential Air Service -- $150 million annual savings.
* Technology Innovation Program -- $70 million annual savings.
*Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program -- $125 million annual savings..
* Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization -- $530 million annual savings.
* Beach Replenishment -- $95 million annual savings. ****
* New Starts Transit -- $2 billion annual savings.
* Exchange Programs for Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts -- $9 million annual savings
* Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants -- $2.5 billion annual savings.
* Title X Family Planning -- $318 million annual savings. ****
* Appalachian Regional Commission -- $76 million annual savings. ****
* Economic Development Administration -- $293 million annual savings.
* Programs under the National and Community Services Act -- $1.15 billion annual savings.
* Applied Research at Department of Energy -- $1.27 billion annual savings.
* Freedom CAR and Fuel Partnership -- $200 million annual savings..
* Energy Star Program -- $52 million annual savings.
*Economic Assistance to Egypt -- $250 million annually.
* U.S.Agency for International Development -- $1.39 billion annual savings..
* General Assistance to District of Columbia -- $210 million annual savings.
* Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority -- $150 million annual savings.
*Presidential Campaign Fund -- $775 million savings over ten years.
* No funding for federal office space acquisition -- $864 million annual savings.
* End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services.
* Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act -- More than $1 billion annually.
* IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget -- $1.8 billion savings over ten years.
*Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees -- $1 billion total savings. WHAT'S THIS ABOUT?(added by sender)
* Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees -- $1.2 billion savings over ten years.
* Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of -- $15 billion total savings.
*Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress. WHAT??? (added by sender)
* Eliminate Mohair Subsidies -- $1 million annual savings.
*Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- $12.5 million annual savings. WELL ISN'T THAT SPECIAL (added by sender)
* Eliminate Market Access Program -- $200 million annual savings.
* USDA Sugar Program -- $14 million annual savings.
* Subsidy to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) -- $93 million annual savings.
* Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program -- $56.2 million annual savings.
*Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs -- $900 million savings. ****
* Ready to Learn TV Program -- $27 million savings..****
* HUD Ph.D. Program.
* Deficit Reduction Check-Off Act.
*TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.5 Trillion over Ten Years
My question is, what is all this doing in the budget in the first place?!
Maybe this is why the Democrats are attacking Paul Ryan.
Please Send to everyone you know.." And thus it ends.
While it seems obvious that some of these items might be passé, There are others, all, mind you, alleged by implication to be favorites of Democrats which the frugal Republicans wish to rightfully, of course, do away with. The truth here, as it always is in dealing with Far Right loonies, is far from simple and closer to partisan.
Where to start? Ok let's take the first lie first: This isn't a budget, it accounts for no expenditures, simply describes cuts) was actually introduced as The Spending Reduction act of 2011. It was introduced by Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, not Paul Ryan! It stayed in committee in the Republican controlled House, where Democrats couldn't have prevented a vote if they wished to, so obviously this vote was prevented from moving by the House majority, Republicans as we recall. As to the particulars, you're right, some of this stuff deserves an asskicking for whomever proposed it, but many have been there for ages and ages. and neither party has had any desire to get rid of them.
The very first bill to kill the Congressional death gratuity was introduced by a TN Democrat, Rep. Jim Cooper; again, it ain't Ryan (or even Republican) material!
As for the unpaid taxes of federal employees, that would be about 0.8% of the total unpaid taxes.($114 billion) Why not have everyone pay their taxes? Retired military owe over a billion!, active duty and reservists owe about $336 million. The proposal is to fire any federal employees who are delinquent. What an easy way to get a discharge, huh? Again, this is not a "Republican" idea, it has White House support on the principle involved. Again, the vast majority of unpaid tax is owed by non federal people.
As for the "Mohair and wool subsidy", Eisenhower signed it into law in 1954, been there ever since, again, a Republican initiative, not Democrat.
The "Alaska native....trading...Massachusetts" line item was signed into law by GW Bush in 2001.
Of course "Obamacare (the Affordable care Act) costs are there, they hate it because, as most Republican Governors now admit - it works!
OK, I'm tired of looking stuff up, which is what the originator of this previously discredited chain e-mail should have done. There is a bunch of stuff here that should go out the window, and I believe federal employees as well as the other 99.02 % of tax delinquents should be pressured to pay their taxes. I also believe Congress members probably don't need a years' salary as death benefit, although the members apparently actually got the money, unlike Walmart, who secretly insured employees, named themselves beneficiaries, and kept the death benefit themselves!
Many public area employers provide a death benefit for little or, no premium. Although a year's salary seems high for dying in the saddle, US corporations routinely award far more to CEOs who fail miserably. One quick example: Mattell's CEO received $50 million in severance pay in 2000 after being employed for only two years during which time Mattel's stock price fell by 50 percent, wiping out $2.5 billion in shareholder value. His payout for miserable failure was about equal to 287 Congressional death gratuities. I'm just sayin'!
Bottom line: 1: It ain't Ryan's "budget (or Bill or whatever) In fact Ryan wasn't even among the bill's 32 co-sponsors!
2: there is no massive "Democratic opposition" to many of these proposals
3: It has been kept tabled in committee by the Republican majority in the US House, via a committee chaired by a Republican.
4: The proposal to end the Congressional death gratuity was introduced by a Democrat .
So why send this at all? It has to do with appearing to be fiscally responsible and blaming one's shortcomings on others. In all honesty, Ryan has nothing to do with this scurrilous chain e-mail other than his picture being attached to it. It is simply another Far Right attempt to smear moderates of both parties by implying that if Ryan supports these line items , some of which are, no doubt, wasteful, then "wasteful" Democrats all oppose him. The inverse is true in many cases, however, as in the Congressional death gratuity issue, where it is a Democrat who has actually proposed ending it. It also lumps into the equation several organizations (PBS, NEA, NEH) which the Far Righters hate because they encourage people to learn and think for themselves.
Another example is the proposal to end the Davis-Bacon ACT. I am dead certain that no one receiving this e-mail could identify the law in question, in fact, I would be willing to bet that less than 1 in 10,000 Americans could do so. Naturally, proposing to overturn a law no one can describe is easy. Actually it's a cheap shot. The law in question was sponsored by two Republicans and signed into law by A Republican president, Herbert Hoover. Simply put, it required that contractors working on federally funded projects (over a specified total cost) have to pay their workers a wage equivalent to the prevailing local wage. This was an attempt to discourage contractors from importing (at the time) black or immigrant workers at low pay, rather than hiring locally and stimulating local economies. While the act has been controversial, the controversy had usually centered not on the intent of the law, but the quality of its enforcement. In an era of real concern about non-documented immigrants undercutting home grown worker's rights, many Republicans should adore this act, as it would avoid the use of cheaper immigrant labor, and insure a fairer marketplace of labor - oh wait, maybe they really don't want that (or their corporate masters don't).
One more time, this proposal has been stalled for over two years by House Republicans, not Democrats as it implies! It also isn't a Paul Ryan proposal.
Facts can be embarrassing, can't they?
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