The Huffington Post:
Signaling how difficult it will be for the Republican Party to live up to its campaign promises of cutting spending while preserving the Bush tax cuts and not cutting benefits for seniors, Tea Party favorites Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-Ky.) struggled on Sunday to actually name any specific cuts they plan on making.
On ABC’s “This Week,” Christiane Amanpour repeatedly pressed Paul to move beyond “slogans and platitudes” to “direct information” on how the Republican Party will balance the budget and cut the deficit.
Paul immediately reiterated that he was going to push for a balanced budget amendment and said that cuts needed to come from across the board — including defense spending. Whenever Amanpour asked whether a specific program — such as Medicare, Social Security and health care — would be cut, Paul simply kept reiterating that he was going to be looking “across the board.” He was unable, however, to actually name anything significant that would be on the chopping block.
It’s easy to criticize when someone else has the ball. Now the ball is in DeMint’s and Paul’s court, it isn’t quite as easy to do the slice and dice thing on the budget. Those who criticized the loudest will continue to be questioned, every single day. The clock started Wednesday, November 3. We expect great results. Surely those with the best sound bites can come up with a cut or two. So far all I have seen is BS and blather. It seems we have evolved some since 1789.
AMANPOUR: One significant one. No, but you can’t just keep saying all across the board.
PAUL: Well, no, I can, because I’m going to look at every program, every program. But I would freeze federal hiring. I would maybe reduce federal employees by 10 percent. I’d probably reduce their wages by 10 percent. The average federal employee makes $120,000 a year. The average private employee makes $60,000 a year. Let’s get them more in line, and let’s find savings. Let’s hire no new federal workers.
Where is he getting these figures from? How do we not hire more federal workers? Someone today said to cut FBI agents. Get serious.
