No Pat for Congress--The Shutdown

The New York Times' Nicholas Kristoff says today that if the government shuts down, members of Congress should go without pay . He concludes, "If members of Congress shut down government and trigger a new financial crisis, then they shouldn't just have their own pay docked. They should also learn the discipline of a market economy and be fired by the public that they are betraying."

The federal spending controversy

With another federal spending controversy brewing on Capitol Hill, recall that in his 2010 State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama said, “We’ve already identified $20 billion in savings for next year.” Now it’s next year — so what happened to the $20 billion in savings? Let’s follow the bouncing budget cut.

The “$20 billion” promise was not the sort of empty verbiage that dominates the federal spending debate. How many times have you heard a politician thunder about cutting spending but not cite even one specific reduction he or she supports? A year ago, the Office of Management and Budget laid out Obama’s proposed cuts in specific detail.