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Macomb, IL – Despite weeks of secret meetings, Congress' 12-member "Super Committee" on trimming the deficit seems to have made little progress. The panel's goal is suggesting, by Thanksgiving, $1.2 trillion in cuts from federal spending in the next decade.
If a proposal ever emerges, the House and Senate will get only an up-or-down vote in December, meaning that bipartisan consensus is needed. However, predictable arguments about cutting popular programs such as Medicare and increasing taxes have impeded progress.
That's not unlike most Americans, who generally support public schools that do well, Social Security, defense, Medicare and so on, but also feel short-changed. The skepticism is that of people who pay tolls for good roads only to find they go nowhere, or patients who pay for prescriptions to continue good health only to get placebos.
So I asked three staunch conservatives and three strong progressives to weigh in with their perspectives on President Obama's proposed $3.7 trillion budget for 2012.
First, readers might be reminded that last year's spending of $3.5 trillion broke down as 20% for Defense and security, 20% for Social Security, 21% for Medicare, Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance, 14% for safety-net programs, 6% for interest on the debt. That adds up to 81%. Everything else - education, veterans benefits, transportation, scientific research, foreign affairs, etc. came out of the remaining 19%.
Two of the three conservatives replied by essentially copying and pasting House Republicans' January proposal to cut spending or similar ideas from conservative broadcaster John Stossel. Those include eliminating six cabinet departments (such as Agriculture, Interior and Energy), NASA, the Small Business Administration, the FCC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, Amtrak, and a few disputed net gains such as the supposed "$1 billion in unpaid taxes by federal employees."
However, another conservative proposed cutting the Pentagon by 2/3. One Tazewell County conservative conceded that "the number of items on the [budget] list are a bit overwhelming" and that Obama "inherited a mess, but made it worse" -- also suggested cutting some ag subsidies.
A Knox County progressive agreed, saying subsidies for ethanol and to corporations that operate farms should be cut, and no new military bases built (he said, "over 700 is unnecessary"). The Galesburg man also proposed withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan and targeting business-friendly tax deductions on meals and entertainment and interest on life-insurance savings.
That was echoed by another Tazewell man -- a thoughtful conservative who added, "The federal government is a monster' that eats money with no remorse; we need small federal government, period."
Still, he also thought those tax deductions were a luxury, as is some defense spending. He proposed cutting Afghanistan and Iraq war funding up to 25%, and the Pentagon's operations and maintenance line item by 20%.
Actually, that is conservative, according to The American Conservative magazine, which editorialized, "What would Goldwater have made of the $388 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program? The latter-day right possesses what Michel Chevalier called the morale of an army on the march: no time for reflection, no room for dissent, there are liberals to vanquish."
This conservative also cuts the $18.5 billion in "tax expenditures" -- as did Bill Poorman, a Coordinating Committee member of the Greater Peoria Progressive Coalition.
He said, "The first thing I'd cut are tax expenditures, otherwise known as tax breaks. In deficit conditions, tax breaks are spending. We borrow money to afford the tax breaks in exactly the same way that we borrow money for direct spending. I have to add: We have to pay our bills. The numbers have to add up - over the long run. [Also,] where were the conservatives when deficit spending in American politics was being institutionalized during the Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II administrations?"
A Macomb progressive summed it up: "shared sacrifice in many if not most programs," also mentioning cuts in ag subsidies and the Safe & Drug-Free Schools program - which the Tazewell conservative also eliminated.
The liberal Macomb retiree added, "I would also approach the revenue side the same way, though more aggressively, [as] President Obama,"
So there's some common ground at the grass roots, if only that possibility would "trickle up" to Capitol Hill.
Bill Knight is a freelance writer who teaches at Western Illinois University. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of WIU or Tri States Public Radio