Slide 22 of 49
Notes:
Ah, now we can get the knife out and do a little carving can’t we. The Direct Student Assistance to College Students program had a cost in 1995 of $13.4 billion or .88% of the total budget. What do we need this program for? Cut it? College students should have to pay their own way, all the way, don’t you think? (What type of statement did I just make?)
I hope you all realize that I am only trying to get you to think about the difficulty of making some of these cuts. Any cuts made will affect one group of people or another with a vested interest in the continuation of a program. Each of us are more than willing to cut items from a budget as long as we perceive those cuts not to have a negative impact on us, or a significant indirect negative impact. You must remember that there are 100 senators and 435 representatives in the 105th Congress elected to represent our interests in the development and administration of the federal budget. If those individuals do not do as the majority of us would like them to do, they lose their job. If our class had $5,000 to spend, I dare say that we would probably have a time trying to agree on what to spend that money on, and how much money to spend on each item that we may have agreed upon. I am sure you all have heard of husbands and wives fussing over where the family money is being spent, and how much; and that is just two people. I have mentioned cost/benefit analysis in making decisions but we need to remember that the benefit of spending tax money on a particular program to me, may not be the same to you. The same logic applies to cost.
