Ooh boy, budget cuts announcement

[sandnsea]

Let's hope these are the most contentious cuts and that they are being released early to get them out of the way, so we can celebrate some good cuts next week.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/01/30/tough-choices

The President believes we need to be honest about what is working and what isn’t and that making tough choices about which programs to fund and which to reduce or terminate is part of governing.

In the 2011 Budget we will release on Monday we terminated or reduced programs that weren’t working well or duplicated efforts, some in areas that are important to the President and to the Administration.

Last year, President Obama sought to end or reduce 121 programs for a one-year savings of approximately $17 billion of which $11.5 billion was from discretionary savings. Congress approved cuts that produced a net discretionary savings of $6.8 billion, nearly 60 percent of the discretionary cuts proposed. According to the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget, this far exceeds the best the last Administration did (40 percent), and far exceeds the less than 15 percent success rate they had in their last two years in office (pdf).

This year, we are proposing more than 120 terminations, reductions, and savings for approximately $20 billion in savings this year.

Some of the programs eliminated or scaled back include:

· Consolidating 38 Education programs into 11. The current program structure at the Department of Education is fragmented and ineffective. The Department operates dozens of grant programs that impose narrow requirements on districts and fail to demand better outcomes or build a knowledge base of what works. Some of these programs have little evidence of success, while others are demonstrably failing to improve student achievement. As part of the Administration’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization proposal, the Budget therefore proposes to consolidate 38 K-12 programs into 11 new programs that give states and districts more flexibility about means but impose greater accountability for outcomes.

· Cutting Save America’s Treasures and Preserve America grant programs at the National Park Service. Save America’s Treasures program was started to mark the millennium and was supposed to last for two years. Both programs lack rigorous performance metrics and evaluation efforts so the benefits are unclear.

· Eliminate the Advanced Earned Income Tax Credit (AEITC). EITC eligible taxpayers with children may file a form with their employers and receive a portion of their EITC throughout the year in their paychecks. Only a tiny number of EITC eligible taxpayers claim the AEITC; 3 percent, or 514,000 taxpayers according to the Government Accountability Office. And the error rate for the program is high: 80 percent of recipients did not comply with at least one program requirement. This ineffective and prone-to-error program should be eliminated.

· Terminate the Brownfields Economic Development Initiative. While a consistent supporter of the brownfield clean-up on the campaign trail and a strong advocate for expanding economic opportunity in urban areas, the President proposes to eliminate BEDI, a small program duplicative of larger programs. Instead, the Administration consolidates its support for the brownfield clean-up – funding larger programs and thereby reducing overhead costs.

· End Abandoned Mine Lands Payments to Certified States. The Abandoned Mine Land program was established to restore abandoned coal mine lands. Changes to this program allowed these funds to go to states and tribes who already have cleaned up these mine. Paying states and tribes to clean up mines that are already cleaned up was not the intention of this program, and is why it is being terminated.

These choices are never easy, but the President never expected that governing during tough economic times with rising deficits would be easy

[mr1956]

1. Most of these cuts appear like a good start

I especially agree with ending the Abandoned Mine program and the National Park Service program. Seems like they were poorly documented leaving them ripe for wasteful spending.

The consolidation of programs seems smart on the surface but it will only be a minute before the greater accountability for Education programs is going to be equated to NCLB. Even if the the purpose served by the Brownfields Clean-up Project is continued under another name, how much you want to bet this cost saving measure will be touted as a broken campaign promise.

Thanks sandnsea for putting this information here. It gives me time to formulate a response to the negative spin that is sure to follow.

[FrenchieCat]

2. As for the Advanced Earned Income Tax Credit (AEITC) repeal,

Very few folks take advantage of this anyway,
and employers hate it due to the paperwork.

Most AEIC filers usually wait till their returns are being prepared
to take advantage of the earned income tax credit tabulated on their return,
because it is the source of a large amount of money in one fell swoop,
and is seen by many as their once a year bonus for earning under a certain
amount while supporting children.

In addition, folks who earn under a certain amount
and are above the age of 25 (single persons) are alloted a smaller EITC,
but again, rarely do any applied for "advance" payments.

So this is a reasonable program to cut, since few use it.

[sandnsea]

3. Two things

Perception is everything and I don't know that the benefit is worth the negative perception.

And it matters for the 400,000 who do use it and will hurt those families a lot. I will wait to see the plan, hopefully he gives people time to adjust their budgets.

[FrenchieCat]

4. You are correct, but out of 25 million who are eligible for it,

400,000 really is a small figure, like .016%.
So in that context, it isn't a very popular program.
Just sayin'.

I'd be more concerned about the 25% of the 25 million who aren't even
aware that they qualify for the EITC and who claim it. That's 6.2 million people!

http://www.yourmoneycounts.com/ymc/tools/article/022009_earned_income_tax_credit.html

[sandnsea]

5. Agree with that

I'm just thinking of how things get blown out of proportion. I've also always used EIC in the paycheck as an example of refundability for insurance subsidies. With this program gone, I won't be able to. But maybe people thought I was nuts anyway, since so few use the program, maybe most don't even know about it.

I also read somewhere the budget is supposed to be over $3 trillion, YIKES! He has bitten off quite a bit and no wonder he is making an issue about the budget cuts, if that's true.

Here's some good stuff on families and defense too, glad they followed through with this.

http://www.defense.gov//News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=57728