Small Potatoes

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House John Boehner

The GOP has accomplished some pretty impressive work on the (much delayed) 2011 budget. All the extensions on the budget have come with some sort of a cut, and the final product promises even more – that is if they could get it done.

It is no shock that the Democrats are (grudgingly) fighting such measures. Aside from blatant waste, cuts to government programs are anathema to the Democrat concept of how government should function. Still, even leading Democrats can read the writing on the wall and know that some of the government bloat, even the bloat that they adore, must go. Republicans should not underestimate how truly difficult this is for the Democrat mindset. After all, Republicans (particularly of the Bush 43 era) have often seemed equally as fond of the ever-expanding federal government when such growth favors their agendas.

Given all this, I applaud the GOP’s work to reverse the sickening trend towards bigger, less efficient but more powerful government. It is laudable work. The victory getting any sort of cuts to President Obama’s ludicrous spending agenda is a massive.

So it is with some regret that I feel I must point out that Republican quibbling over a couple tens of billions of dollars for fiscal year 2011 is getting a bit tired. It is one thing to win the fight. It is another to pick over the corpse of you enemy, particularly if such picking could result in ill favor.

I can hear the cries now. We need to save every dime! Any dollar with can possibly snatch from the jaws of the federal government is a another victory for the cause! Yes, I know tens of billions of dollars is a lot of money. Yes, I know it is probably tied up in programs that could stand to be cut. Yes, I know that the United States is in a horrible, horrible debt spiral.