If you want an example of just how difficult it can be to trim back the federal budget, look no further than the floor of the House on Wednesday, as lawmakers easily rejected a plan to reduce spending on military bands.
Yes, you read that right - military music bands.
This year, military bands have a budget of $388 million, which covers 140 different musical groups and over 5,000 musicians in the military.
Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) wanted to pull that budget number back to $200 million - which still might seem like too much to some taxpayers.
"The Pentagon is on pace to spend $4 billion over the next decade on military bands," said McCollum, as she asked the House to chop $188 million from the military music budget for next year.
But McCollum ran head first into veteran lawmakers with strong ties to the Pentagon, who frowned on her bid to rein in this part of the military budget.
"This is not a good idea," said Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young, who said it was a plus to have military bands perform around the country.
"This country needs a good shot of patriotism, because we've had too much negativism," Young said on the House floor.
Young didn't have to flex much of his Appropriations Committee muscle, as the votes rolled in overwhelmingly against the budget cut, again demonstrating that the idea of spending cuts sound great until those plans are brought up on the floor for a vote.
The final tally was 250-166 against the military band budget cuts. You can see how your lawmakers voted on the U.S. House web site.
A few minutes after the House dispatched the military bands amendment, there was another example of the difficulty involved in budget cuts, as the House rejected a plan to cut $72 million from the budget to stop Pentagon sponsorships in major sports like NASCAR.
"Number one, it's not effective," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), who cited $26 million in sponsorship spending by the National Guard, which delivered the Guard only 20 potential recruits.
And not one of them joined up according to the military.
"Zero recruits - not effective," said Kingston. "We can spend this money a lot better than we are spending today."
Kingston said the sponsorships at NASCAR events are a good example, because most of the audience is too old to join the military.
The Georgia Republican said he asked the Pentagon earlier this year for figures on what their sponsorship spending means in terms of actual recruits, but they didn't have any hard figures.
"The Army can't tell us how many recruits they get from this," said Kingston, who noted that last week the Army officially ended its NASCAR sponsorship.
But like the bid to cut money for military bands, the idea of getting rid of military sports sponsorships fell flat, as it was defeated on a vote of 216-202.
That vote broke more along party lines with a majority of Republicans against the sponsorship budget cut and Democrats for the plan that failed. You can see that vote on the House website as well.
While $72 million for sports sponsorships and $188 million for military bands doesn't come close to solving the budget deficit, they are good examples of how budget cuts of all kinds face an uphill battle in the Congress.
