Commentary: 5 Wasteful Items that Obama Should Cut from the Budget
Diana Furchtgott-Roth | 02/11/2016 | This article originally appeared in Economics 21 and is republished with permission.
President Obama’s eighth, and final, budget was released this week, and he is requesting $4.1 trillion in spending for fiscal 2017, funded in part by $3 trillion in higher taxes. The White House estimates that the deficit for fiscal 2016 will be $616 billion, up from $438 billion in 2015. So where can he cut?
Here are five proposals that could be usefully trimmed from the president’s budget:
Green infrastructure
Federally funded infrastructure is a favorite of Democrats, because it is built with union labor, and unions, after all, give the Democrats large contributions. The AFL-CIO spent $47 million in political contributions and lobbying in 2013, with practically all of the money going to Democrats. The president wants to spend (or “invest,” as he calls it) $320 billion over the next decade in a “clean transportation system for the 21st Century that speeds goods to market while reducing America’s reliance on oil, cutting carbon pollution, and strengthening our resilience to the effects of the changing climate.” That includes high-speed rail, an expensive form of transportation that always runs at a deficit because riders do not want to pick up the tab. read more here
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