From: laelth@yabbs
To: Cochise@yabbs
Subject: The Budget
Date: Thu Feb  3 13:03:30 1994

Hmm...
    I'm not sure I know what you mean by "bureaucracy."  You say that 
Herbert Hoover was the last president to cut the bureaucracy, but what 
does that mean?  If you're talking about government employees,  I'd argue 
that Nixon, by pulling us out of Vietnam, most drastically cut the number 
of government employees.  (Of course you know that our military employs 
over 2 million people).  But, I don't think that's what you mean.  
Although the military is by far the BIGGEST bureaucracy around, most 
conservatives want to preserve that bureaucracy.  From my experience, when 
conservatives cry about bureaucracy, they are really crying about social 
programs that they don't like.  BTW President Clinton lowered (by about 
5%) the total number of government employees (both military and 
non-military) last year!  He is actually committed to reducing the size of 
the Federal Government, although leftists like myself wonder if this is 
suuch a good idea.  Frankly, I'd rather see the government employ more 
people, not less.  The last thing that we need in times of high 
unemployment is for the government to cut the number of people that it 
employs.  But I'm off the subject.
    You say we need to cut the bureaucracy (cut spending! cut spending!), 
but you still don't name a single program that you want to cut. Your 
numbers just don't add up.  We simply can't cut $300 billion dollars from 
the federal budget without drastic consequences.  As I've said before, and 
will say again, "Cut Spending! Cut Spending!" is a lie that won't and cant 
work.  Politicians feed us this line of bull because that's what we want 
to hear, but they know that the problem is far to serious to be solved 
with spending cuts.

In quiet desperation,

-laelth