A necessitous man is not a free man--Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936
Approximately $85 billion in budget cuts are due to begin in March. Although the Budget Control Act specifies that the cuts are to be equal percentages across-the-board, it does not dictate that the actual cuts need to be made equally in all congressional districts.
By their nature some of the cuts will impact the country as a whole, and others will disproportionately impact certain districts where the money is being spent, such as defense plants.
But, there are some cuts that could be overweighted in Tea Party-controlled districts, freeing that money up to be spent in other districts to keep the program whole. For example, more TSA personnel could be furloughed in Texas (Dallas, Houston), Arizona (Phoenix), Alabama, and fewer or none in Chicago, Seattle, Boston, New York, so that residents of the former states would face longer security lines and waiting times.
Because the Tea Party types consider government spending to be evil, corrupting, dependency-producing and tyrannical, they should greet their disproportionate reduction with dancing and flowers. It will constitute the first real success of the "freedom agenda."
The money saved by an agency in one congressional district could be shifted in the same agency to prevent cuts in other districts.
Everyone should be happy -- the congressional districts represented by those such as Louie Gohmert, Paul Broun, Michele Bachmann and upwards of 80 others will be, as we say in Texas, happier than a two peckered dog that the government is not so much in their lives, while the other districts will be pleased to use that unspent money to moderate or negate the impact of those cuts. We ought also to include the districts of Speaker Boehner, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy.
In reality, of course, the Tea Party Members of the Congress and Senate will howl. Recall former Arizona Senator Jon Kyl's explosive reaction to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's suggestion that if Kyl did not like the stimulus, as he publicly proclaimed, then perhaps LaHood would send the money designated for Arizona to another state.
One hates to make ordinary people suffer for the blind ideology of their leaders. Perhaps, however, their howling constituencies will force them to change their votes, and soon.
Or, even better, perhaps their constituencies will realize that their ideology bankrupts the American Dream.