Hey Congress — Free Money!

Is Congress really too fractured to agree on spending cuts? It shouldn’t be. Because a campaign called Green Scissors has a list that bridges the alleged conservative/liberal divide.

First, let me explain who’s behind this list:

The Heartland Institute http://heartland.org/
This is a free market think-tank, which encourages parental choice in education, choice and personal responsibility in health care, market-based approaches to environmental protection, privatization of public services, and deregulation in areas where property rights and markets do a better job than government bureaucracies.

Taxpayers for Common Sense http://taxpayer.net/
This is a spending watchdog organization, in the spirit of the late Senator William Proxmire’s “Golden Fleece” award — which ridiculed dumb government projects. It’s run by Democratic and Republican budget hawks.

Friends of the Earth http://foe.org/
Progressive Enviros, Actor Ed Begley’s favorite cause.

Public Citizen http://www.citizen.org
Ralph Nader’s shock troops; the original anti-corporate crusaders.

Here’s the list of cuts they agree on: (totals are over 5 years):

CUT SUBSIDIES FOR OIL AND NATURAL GAS: 61,275,000,000

CUT SUBSIDIES FOR NUCLEAR POWER: 49,615,000,000

CUT SUBSIDIES FOR ALTERNATIVE ENERGY PROJECTS THAT WON’T WORK: 95,817,000,000

CUT AGRICULTURE SUBSIDIES: 56,655,000,000

CUT SUBSIDIES FOR OUT-OF-THE-WAY AIRPORTS: 106,522,000,000

CUT SUBSIDIES FOR LAND AND WATER PROJECTS: 15,290,000,000

The concept is that sometimes, cleaning up the environment isn’t a matter of spending more money, but spending less.

See the full report at http://www.GreenScissors.org, and send it to your representative.

-DR