If Congress cannot reduce wasteful spending when the amounts are relatively small, what confidence can the American people have that it will reduce the much bigger-ticket parts of the budget?
As you may know, the Federal Aviation Administration was recently partially shut down for lack of funding. Why? Because Democrats refused to accept a few million dollars worth of cuts to a wasteful federal program that heavily subsidizes flights to some rural airports around the country. Republicans agreed to fund the FAA’s overall functions, but they sensibly wanted to cut out subsidies for flights to and from those sparsely populated areas.
A deal was eventually reached to get the FAA running again. But as U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., told The Associated Press, “If we’re having this fight over $16 million in subsidies, how are they going to get trillions [of dollars in cuts] from government? It’s not a good start.”
Shouldn’t it tell us something that Democrats were unwilling to take even a modest step toward responsible federal finance? If they wouldn’t cut out small, unneeded programs, how likely is it that they will agree to the far larger long-term cuts that our country needs to get its fiscal house in order?
The Bible reminds us that “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much … .”