Obama: “There’s NO smart way” to make these cuts

Our President wants us to know one thing: we can never, ever, ever reduce Government spending, in any way. We simply can’t.

Ever.

Capiche?

—–

I said a couple days back that our Government “jumped the shark” in this nightmarish budgeting battle, and Obama seems intent on proving my point.

We’re being led to believe that every single shekel sent to the Federal Government is precious to our shared existence. No way can we pare back any agency’s budget, anywhere, without “Chaos-mageddon” being realized.

Sure.

Which would mean that our oh-so-frugal politicians must’ve already cut their expenses to the bone, jettisoning every last vestige of waste, right?

The most parsimonious president in U.S. history would LIKE you to believe that, but…:

 “In FY 2011, the federal government reported $115 billion in improper payments. This is only an estimate; the total amount of improper payments is unknown.

(…)

Improper payments occur for a variety of reasons, but they are all the result of poor financial management. Programs are particularly vulnerable to improper payments when agencies fail to maintain effective internal controls, adequate financial management systems, or sufficient oversight. These programs are classified as “high-error.”

In FY 2011, the Office of Management and Budget identified eleven high-error programs. These eleven programs made up 94% of all reported improper payments in 2011. At the top of the list are the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which accounted for over half of all reported improper payments. Other high-error programs include unemployment insurance, Social Security, and the Earned Income Tax Credit.”

And just in case you’d forgotten, such profligacy and waste is the rule, not the exception.

Consider: the $115 Billion that was misspent/overpaid in 2011 doesn’t even address non-essential services that could be scaled back or discontinued. This, over a hundred Billion dollars of our money, is tax revenue which they simply LOST.

Where are the headlines? Are we seeing the Babbling Heads on TV scream “Senator Such-and-Such, where did the money go? Sir??!“, several times an hour? Nope: our money just floats off into the ether, like a kid’s balloon on a breezy spring day.

Instead, what we hear and read is that there’s “No smart way” to make ANY cuts….’cause President Prudent is already being so judicious with our cash, doncha’ see.

—–

Recently Reason.com’s Matt Welch opined:

“Taxpayers shouldn’t be fearing the forced spending cuts, they should be fearing that the cuts don’t go nearly far enough.”

Exactly so.

We have a hyper-distended, gluttonous Federal Government which is fighting for every morsel of money it can stuff down its gullet, and we need to put it on the mother of all diets, STAT.

Per Allahpundit, both houses of Congress are being just as dysfunctional on this topic as you might expect. However, I have a suggestion for the Senate specifically: what if we were to have an actual budget? You know, like the Law says we should have? Wouldn’t that possibly be of some help?

Just a thought.