The Proposed Republican Budget Cuts

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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.