Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Department Of Symbolism
So, the big news (aside from the Wikileaks dump) is President Obama's freeze on federal salaries. Its expected to save some five billion dollars over two years. That's quite a sum of money, working out to estimated savings of about 6.8 million dollars a day, but in the grand scheme of things, its chump change, and will have no real impact on the deficit.
Consider: The total proposed for the 2011 Defense Department budget is over 708 billion dollars, or just under two billion dollars a day. We're spending over three billion dollars a week in Iraq and Afghanastan. We'd save around 312 billion dollars over that two year period just by getting out of those two money pits.
This is nothing but a symbolic gesture, and the clerk filing papers at some federal office, the nurse at the VA, and the food safety inspector at the FDA will pay the price. And the Republicans will continue to refuse to compromise or engage in bipartisanship.
Consider: The total proposed for the 2011 Defense Department budget is over 708 billion dollars, or just under two billion dollars a day. We're spending over three billion dollars a week in Iraq and Afghanastan. We'd save around 312 billion dollars over that two year period just by getting out of those two money pits.
This is nothing but a symbolic gesture, and the clerk filing papers at some federal office, the nurse at the VA, and the food safety inspector at the FDA will pay the price. And the Republicans will continue to refuse to compromise or engage in bipartisanship.
Labels: politics
