Last week, House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) outlined $58 billion in non-security domestic spending cuts. Within hours, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) attacked the proposal calling it “unworkable” and “even more draconian than we originally anticipated.” But these outcries were hardly unexpected considering Washington’s spending addiction. As National Review’s Rich Lowry commented in his column this morning, “There is a complicated mathematical symbol practically unknown to the House Appropriations Committee. It’s called the minus sign.”
In response to these outcries, Matthias Shapiro, the creator of Obama Budget Cuts Visualization and The National Debt Road Trip videos, has created another new video which puts this hysteria into perspective.
But while we can be assured that this and all efforts to curb government’s growth will be met by fierce opposition, that should not discourage legislators from moving forward. As we noted last week, much more spending reductions and fundamental entitlement reform will be necessary for our country to regain its fiscal health.
