Maastricht Treaty revisions needed?

[kandrathe]

Your opinions about government overall *are* extreme.

Not really. Compared to US politics, I'm not centrist. But in the big world of politics, I'm pretty mainstream. I find in the rules for radicals, one of them is to marginalize, and then ridicule your opponent as off on the lunatic fringe. "Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage." I wouldn't describe my views much divergent than the average libertarian, and perhaps a bit more thought out than your average tea party activist. According to CNN, the estimated population that identify with this point of view is between 35 and 40%. That's not really very fringe.

If cutting out the Department of Education was going to save much money, that might be important. But it wouldn't - efficiency gains would be a few billion, tops.

A few billions here, and a few billions there, and pretty soon we're talking some real money.

All that slack funding would simply have to be picked up at the state level, or education would have to be cut back.

Take the $100 billion currently being doled out, and start scaling it back by $10 billion per year over the next 6 years (adjusted for inflation) to bring spending back into line with FY 2000 levels. This gives schools, students, and States time to figure out how to either fund it, or do without it. That saves you $210 billion over 6 years, just to bring spending in line with FY 2000 levels.

For the moment, that's a huge problem, because states can't borrow like the Feds can, and if they had to pick up the slack, they'd come up short, because they're in crisis.

Thankfully, no, the States cannot deficit spend. Now, if only we might curb the Feds. Deficit spending should be a rare measure used at times of national emergency, not the status quo.

Contrariwise, if you cut back funding, it would undermine economic recovery, and cause problems for the future.

Um, I believe our issue is that yearly spending is passing by GDP. Then at some point, it just becomes impossible to repay the debt, without resorting to devaluation of our currency. I think simply put; I see government spending as a part of the problem, and I think you see it as a part of the solution.

So, for the moment, the Dept. of Education should probably stay where it is, and worry about actual problems, rather than trying to nickel-and-dime the budget during a period of 10% unemployment. Once that storm has passed, then it might be wiser to think about maximizing efficiency. I seriously doubt de-consolidation is a good way to do that, but it would at least be on the table.

Perhaps the problem with the recovery is that the tick is bigger than the dog. Maybe what needs to happen is that government needs to get off of the economies back, to allow it to recover. Now is not the time to increase the rate of sucking that dog dry. But, you are right on one account, I wouldn't go put 100,000 government workers out of a job this year. Drastic change is what devastates economies.