What Congress could cut in Georgia

By Bob Keefe bkeefe@ajc.com

WASHINGTON — If members of the 112th Congress stick to the promises that got them elected, cutting government spending will be at the top of the to-do list after they convene at noon today.

But now that the campaigning is over and the work begins, the questions become: Where do they cut? And who will make sacrifices?

Several members of Georgia’s delegation to Washington will be at the center of congressional attempts to cut spending.

Some say the way to go is to take a scalpel to the government’s checkbook, cutting congressional “earmarks” and other pork-barrel expenses.

Others say Congress needs to pick up a big, broad ax and chop away at the major programs that make up the bulk of government spending, such as Medicare and Social Security and defense.

Still others call for more radical changes, like overhauling the way the government gets its income — abolishing the Internal Revenue Service and income taxes and replacing it all with a national sales tax.

Regardless of the approach, it won’t be easy.

“How are you going to reduce hundreds of billions of dollars in spending in short order?” Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson asked. “It’s going to have to be through a lot of tough love and shared sacrifice.”

Who will sacrifice what depends on the approach — or approaches — that the new Congress takes. A closer look:

Start small

As the newest member to the House Appropriations Committee, Republican Rep. Tom Graves of Ranger will be in a prime seat to cut earmarks — those congressionally authorized spending items that get so much attention and cause so much angst.

“Instead of requesting earmarks, I will expose them,” Graves said upon his appointment to the committee that controls government spending. “Wherever there is waste, largess or duplication, I plan to call it out and work to cut off funding.”

Two other Georgians are on the Appropriations Committee: Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop of Albany — the state’s biggest earmark sponsor — and Republican Rep. Jack Kingston of Savannah, who was a big earmarks proponent before he and other Republicans recently pledged to quit requesting them.

To be sure, with a nearly $14 trillion deficit, there are plenty of places to cut earmarks and other discretionary expenditures. Past earmark requests by Georgians have funded community streetscape projects and wild turkey habitat improvements, for instance.

But earmarks account for only about 2 percent of the federal spending, according to some estimates — and what some Georgians see as wasteful, others see as necessary.

Spending millions to promote blueberry production or research cotton diseases — as Bishop has done with past earmarks — may seem like a waste to some, but not to the state’s agriculture industry.

Spending $551 million to dredge the Port of Savannah — like Isakson, Kingston and other Georgia politicians want to do — might seem of little benefit to the rest of the state, until you consider that the port has an estimated $8 billion impact on metro Atlanta’s economy and supports an estimated 130,000 jobs statewide.

Other examples, according to the nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics:

● Sick of lousy roads? A $750,000 earmark secured by Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey of Marietta last year helped improve the intersection of I-75 and Third Army Road; another $500,000 earmark helped fix a bridge on Cobb Parkway.

● Want to support our troops? More than $25 million in earmarks secured in recent years by various Georgia congressmen helped pay for improvements at Hunter Army Air Field and Robins Air Force Base; for a soldier training center at Fort Benning; and for missile and bio-sensor research at Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia.

● Care about clean air? Democratic Reps. John Lewis of Atlanta and Hank Johnson of Lithonia, along with Georgia’s two Republican senators, helped secure $4 million in federal funding through earmarks last year to buy new clean-fuel buses for MARTA.

Start big

Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss leads a bipartisan group of senators who plan to present proposals on cutting the deficit shortly after Congress reconvenes.

“People are scared to death about [government] spending and what it’s doing to our country,” Chambliss said. “The path we’re on is unsustainable.”

Chambliss has said nothing should be off the table when it comes to cutting the deficit — including potential cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, increases in the retirement age eligibility requirements for Social Security and cutbacks in other big-ticket programs that help make up the biggest share of government spending.

What would cutting those programs mean in Georgia?

● One in eight Georgians — about 1.4 million people — currently receive Social Security benefits, including 872,000 retirees who get an about $1,145 a month on average from the government. Cutting benefits would mean those retirees would have to live off less each month. It also means it would reduce the estimated $1.4 billion that Social Security recipients pump into the Georgia economy each month. Increasing the retirement age would mean tens of thousands of Georgians would probably have to keep working well into their mid- to late-60s.

● About 1.2 million Georgians get Medicare, which provides medical payments to the elderly. Rising drug and doctor costs are already making it harder for retirees to cover their medical expenses through Medicare; cuts would make it even tougher.

● About 1.5 million Georgians receive Medicaid, which covers health insurance for the poor and indigent. The recession and high unemployment helped push the number of Medicaid recipients in Georgia up by 9 percent in 2009 from a year earlier, and the number is projected to swell by at least 650,000 more by 2019 under the new federal health care legislation.

Start over

One of the most radical ideas to overhaul the federal budget is one that new Republican Rep. Rob Woodall of Lawrenceville is championing.

Woodall is succeeding his former boss, retiring Republican Rep. John Linder, in representing Georgia’s 7th Congressional District northeast of Atlanta.

Woodall has pledged to continue Linder’s push for a “Fair Tax” system that would abolish the current federal tax code and the Internal Revenue Service and replace the federal income tax with a nationwide sales tax.

Opponents to the Fair Tax idea say it would be tough to enforce, would hurt the poor more than the rich and that it could upend the economy because of the uncertainty of revamping the entire tax code and the elimination of economic staples such as mortgage interest and business expense deductions.

Soon after today’s start of a new Congress, Woodall plans to reintroduce legislation in the House that would implement the Fair Tax system; Chambliss has sponsored similar legislation in the Senate.

Though the idea focuses on the revenue side of the government’s budget, eliminating the myriad tax breaks for both individuals and corporations would result in major savings, Woodall said.