The Republican party has come up with a way to cut $929,016,000,000 from the budget, they’ve titled the plan “Operation Offset“. Salon did a write-up with the more accurate name of “This is going to hurt you more than it’s going to hurt me.”

Basically, the plan is to to tear funds out of Medicare and Medicaid, eliminate a large chunk of foreign aid, eliminate the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, etc. It’s basically the conservative laundry list of agenda items for the last fifteen years and they’re abusing a huge national tragedy to push for this stuff.

Their hope is that the Democrats will fight this on principle so they can claim that at least they’re trying to cut down the budget. What the Democrats need to do is release their own plan. I would keep the one year delay on Medicare Prescription Drug Bill because that saves over 30 billion all by itself. I would also keep the repeal of the highway earmarks (pork), which saves another 25 billion.

But then I would roll back the tax credits for the richest one percent, estimate the value of reinstating government bids for things like Iraq and New Orleans (where’s that missing 8.8 billion again?), and cut spending on ridiculous items like missile defense that have been proven over and over again to not work. Those are just off the top of my head but they’ll probably double the savings proposed by the Republicans by themselves.

Here’s the RNC wet-dream rundown. It’s looong so I highlighted areas of particular interest.

Update: Forgot to mention, the numbers below are in millions.

When looking at the ongoing disaster in New Orleans, a part of the discussion has to involve already constrained oil supplies. There have been large jumps in the price of gasoline in response to the disaster, but not as a result of it. That is because the gas you buy at the pump was bought months earlier at wholly different market prices. There shouldn’t be any immediate effect, but there is.

Some people, the President included, have called it price gouging. Others, like Mark Kleiman, call it market clearing, an economic principle that translates into equality of supply and demand. Basically, the price will go up to a point where it causes demand to drop to a level equal or below that of supply, thus preventing a shortage.

Technically they’re both right. However, looking a three dimensional problem from a one dimensional standpoint of economics alone is not only shortsighted, it’s inhumane. The alternative to “market clearing” is typically rationing, whereby everybody is alloted the same amount of that good based on supply. Rationing is absolutely essential for essential goods.

People need oil and gas to survive. With fall, and then winter, approaching, market clearing could just as well be called “let the poor people freeze to death.” Or, since the price of transportation is included in the price of goods for sale in a given local market, you could call it “let the poor people starve to death.” The point is that a civilized society cannot, and must not, allow the basic necessities of survival to be priced out of reach for any portion of that society.

P.S. I’m not doing to good on my decision to scale back on my political reading/posting. I’m still working on that.

P.P.S. Yes, I know I’m agreeing with Bush but I don’t believe in demagoguery. It’s important that you always stand up for what you believe. Besides, even Bush is bound to get something right given a long enough span of time.