Less Bang for the Buck

My 1/22/10 post discussed an article by Daniel Henninger who made the interesting point that even as government budgets go up and up, government services are coming down because so much is being spent on personnel and benefits. Here is an excellent local example that validates his point:

"TriMet is proposing to cut four bus lines, reduce service on dozens of routes and level a 5-cent fare increase to help fill an expected $27 million shortfall for the budget year starting July 1.

The agency blamed an expected $15 million drop in payroll tax revenues -- which fund 55 percent of its operating budget -- due to continuing high unemployment. In addition, passenger revenues are expected to fall by $8 million, said TriMet General Manager Fred Hansen.

But Hansen said other expenses, including a $4 million cost-of-living increase for unionized employees and a projected $63.6 million in health care premiums for TriMet employees and retirees, are also driving the shortfall."

www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/02/trimet_proposes_cutting_servic.html

Did you catch the cost item that I helpfully bolded to highlight its outlandishness? If you recall my 7/9/09 post, Tri Met pays 100% of its employees' premiums, even for families, and is one of the expensive health insurance plans in the country, covering even boob jobs. To all you yokels who use public transit - too bad for you - we need to spend our money on what really counts, feathering our own nest!

This same phenomena has appeared at the Federal level but in a way so big that it is easy to miss the forest for the trees. The U.S. has already canceled the F-22 stealth fighter program because it was "too expensive" despite the fact that it kept us a full generation ahead of any other country in the world, assuring air supremacy when we needed it. Now the Obama Administration has canceled the manned space program and for the first time since 1961 we will have no ability to put men in space, even in low-earth orbit never mind the moon. The space shuttle has flown its last mission and we now have to rely on the Russians to ferry our people up to the international space station. The new rockets, spacecraft, etc. that were being developed to take over the chore have been junked - too expensive. Charles Krauthammer makes the trenchant point:

"Obama's NASA budget perfectly captures the difference in spirit between Kennedy's liberalism and Obama's. Kennedy's was an expansive, bold, outward-looking summons. Obama's is a constricted inward-looking call to retreat.

Fifty years ago, Kennedy opened the New Frontier. Obama has just shut it."

townhall.com/columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2010/02/12/closing_the_new_frontier

It's not just the New Frontier that is closing, it's the American way of life as most of us have known it. More bucks;less bang, too bad for you.