House GOP Deficit Plan Shows They Hate Poors, Federal Workers, Egypt

 
 The House Republican leadership is continuing its tireless mission of pitching legislation that will never become law, like spending cuts they say will save $2.5 trillion over 10 years. Some of this is in specific cuts, like a "$1 million mohair subsidy," which is bravely included despite the overwhelming political power of goats. But much more of it is in "firing 15 percent of the federal workforce and returning to 2006 spending levels for non-defense agencies starting in 2012." That's nice and unspecific and theoretical. Just tap the federal government with Paul Ryan's magic pair of safety scissors, and suddenly it's 2006 again. Hey, it will never pass anyway. May as well!

According to Democratic estimates, cuts of that magnitude - if applied across the board - would require the Justice Department to fire 4,000 FBI agents and 1,500 agents at the Drug Enforcement Administration. The federal prison system would have to fire 5,700 correctional officers, the Agriculture Department would have to cut about 3,000 food safety inspectors, and the Head Start early-childhood education program would be forced to cut about 389,000 children from its rolls.

Hey, we all have to pitch in to pay for those corporate tax loopholes and endless wars half a world away, right?

Of course, of the specific cuts, there are some pretty good ones, because we have a giant government that does a lot of dumb crap. For example: AMTRAK subsidies. Who uses Amtrak besides people who are afraid of flying and people on the East Coast with fancy scarves? Those fancy scarf people have the Megabus. Just use that.

Then there are these things:

Exchange programs for Alaska, native Hawaiians, and their trading partners in Mass: $9 million

We don't need to be funding new words for "snow" and "volcano." Fuck the natives!

Subsidy for DC's WMATA: $150 million

Assistance to District of Columbia: $210 million

Fuck D.C.! You help the federal government for free or you will be bombed. (There will be no cuts in bomb spending, hooray!)

And then there are things that have to be put in quotation marks, so you know those have to be solid:

"Obamacare administrative costs": $900 million

Repeal of Davis-Bacon: "More than $1 billion"

There are also token cuts to, for example, a poor person's ability to have a lawyer in court and to things that entertain libruls, such as public television and not destroying the environment with coal.

And, of course:

Aid to Egypt: $250 million

Fuuuuuuuuck Egypt. [ WP / Weigel ]