A list is out from the House Republican Study Committee, devising specific plans to reduce the deficit. Along with big picture stuff, it includes a number of smaller scale items. Let me list a few that immediately caught my attention--for instance, the media and culture cuts:
Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy. $445 million annual savings. National Endowment for the Arts. $167.5 million annual savings. National Endowment for the Humanities. $167.5 million annual savings.
And the dirty energy cuts:
Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization. $530 million annual savings. Applied Research at Department of Energy. $1.27 billion annual savings. Energy Star Program. $52 million annual savings.
And the denial cuts:
Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. $12.5 million annual savings.
And the cuts that I probably support but that have no meaning whatsoever in the context of the massive deficit:
Eliminate Mohair Subsidies. $1 million annual savings.
If this was a song it might be called "looking for money in all the wrong places." Defunding the IPCC, and saving just $ 12.5 million, seems particularly wrongheaded. Last year's estimated budget deficit was $ 1.171 trillion.
