Last week, John McCain proposed a freeze on all federal spending (with some exceptions):
[youtube 6gYwZkuKTVA]
Most of the post-debate focus was on Barack Obama’s quick response, in which said that McCain wanted to use a hatchet where a scalpel was indicated.
My History Can Beat Up Your Politics picked up McCain’s freeze proposal and (at about minute 3:20) briefly described what a federal spending freeze would actually mean. It said that all US embassies would presumably have to be shut down around the world, for example.
Janice heard the program and she and I wondered what else in the federal budget would be affected by a spending freeze. Here are some:
-
Regulation. Putting the McCain plan into action, enforcement of all federal regulations (such as those which, say, govern Wall Street) would be suspended because the government wouldn’t have the money to pay the regulators or maintain their offices. That commission McCain wants to set up to “study” what went wrong on Wall Street would also go by the wayside since there wouldn’t be any money to fund it. But given the current economic climate in this country, what’s another 777 point loss on the Dow if it means another few Republican votes in Ohio?
-
Education. Many conservatives (including John McCain in a prior incarnation) want to do away with the Department of Education entirely, so this wouldn’t lose him any support at his base. For the rest of the country, however, McCain’s spending freeze would, in the words of the National Education Association, create “a No Child Left Behind funding gap of $15 billion and put[] a crunch on millions of special education students, low-income students, children living in poverty and the hiring of future teachers.”
-
Mail. The U.S. Postal Service is part of the federal government. So no more paper mail. And no more work for the 1,000,000 + employees of the third largest employer in the country.
-
Roads. President McCain would also shut down all federally-funded highway construction, meaning that roads wouldn’t get built and bridges, such as the one which collapsed in Minneapolis and was rebuilt with federal funds, wouldn’t be serviced. Of course, all jobs associated with those projects would also be lost.
-
Levees. While John McCain was celebrating his birthday in San Diego with George W. Bush in 2005, the levees in New Orleans were giving way and an entire American city was being destroyed. Since then, federal funds have provided for their reconstruction and reinforcement. Current estimates are that the job won’t be done until the next president’s first term is halfway over: “Since Katrina, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been fast at work reinforcing and repairing the 325 miles of levees and floodwalls that protect New Orleans and neighboring parishes from the storm surges and flooding that accompany hurricanes. A $15 billion upgrade to the hurricane protection system designed to protect the New Orleans area from a so-called 1-in-100 storm – a storm and associated surge that has a 1 percent chance of hitting in any given year – is scheduled for completion in 2011. As of June, the corps said that it had completed 48 construction contracts and had 47 in progress – some minor, some major.”
Federal spending has “Spured Northern Virginia’s Economy,” and federal investment in “infrastructure, advanced technology and redevelopment projects“, will “create jobs in Michigan,” according to people in both swing states who know. Barack Obama has an opportunity to point out that these programs and jobs would be lost in a McCain Administration for at least as long as his spending freeze is in effect.
Parents of children with special needs who depend on education funding would be out of luck. Anyone who works for or receives mail would have to go without (a job and mail, respectively). The overnight loss of millions of jobs and the choking of federal funds would shatter our already reeling economy. If nothing else, I’d love to see Obama bring this up in the next debate.
UPDATE:
It should be noted that as a matter of law, the president can’t just unilaterally decide to stop spending the government’s money. Once Congress passes and the president signs budget legislation, allocation of funds is out of his hands. In 1995, the government shut down because then-Speaker Newt Gingrich
wanted deep cuts to government spending, which Clinton flatly rejected. Without enough votes to override President Clinton’s veto, Gingrich led the Republicans not to submit a revised budget, allowing the previously approved appropriations to expire on schedule, and causing parts of the Federal government to shut down for lack of funds.
It wasn’t within the president’s power to just cease spending money allocated by Congress. The 95 shutdown happened in the midst of budget negotiations and funds hadn’t yet been appropriated.
But John McCain didn’t make any reference to budget negotiations or revisions or supplemental appropriations. What he said was that he would “freeze” spending. That assumes that as president he would have the power to do so. Fine. Assuming he had that power and decided to exercise it, what’s described above is exactly what would happen and Obama ought to let a broader audience hear exactly what it is that John McCain would like to see happen.
