House Republicans have listed the federal Safe Routes to School program as one of five examples of “wasteful spending” as part of their newly-launched “YouCut” campaign. The campaign puts five proposals out each week and asks the American people to vote on which ones they feel should be cut from the federal budget.
House Republican Whip Eric Cantor says the top vote-getter will be put toward a House vote to decide whether or not to cut its funding. Cantor points out in a video on the website, that over 280,000 people had voted in the first week alone.
Cantor’s YouCut website deems the Safe Routes to School program “duplicative” and says the government could save $183 million year by terminating it entirely. Instead, they feel the program should be a “local responsibility.” “Returning these responsibilities to state and local officials and removing federal mandates would generate savings for taxpayers.”
The League of American Bicyclists has responded by sending out an action alert to members. The League is urging Safe Routes supporters to contact their representatives to let them know the program has support.
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This campaign seems like a ridiculous way to gather and use public input. Will citizens also be given a weekly selection of duplicative House Republicans to terminate from the government payroll?
I hate this because it is incredibly brilliant! Get people worked up, give them a “voice”, and now they feel like they are part of the process and that the GOP actually listens to them.
Look out! The Republicans figured out the Internet.
Real democratic. You get one vote per email address or telephone number you have. I am sending my suggestion to cut health care for House and Senate members.
The democratic process taking place on the internet is a good idea and needs much more expansion.
I don’t agree with this idea for a tax cut so I’m gonna vote till it hurts someone.
What’s ridiculous is to allow tea party windbags to portray their own opinion as the opinion of the entire country because we don’t speak up.
MAKE YOUR SELF HEARD!
They’re just presenting a false dichotomy. They might as well have asked “should we force the federal government to sell unused property, or would you rather have us kick puppies?”
why do headlines like this make me cringe to be a republican? I thought riding bicycles was supposed to be a bi-partisan activity!?!
Leave my tax dollar alone Eric Cantor!
You can look at the YouCut link above, but don’t click on the vote button. You actually do not get an option to vote yes or no to these 5 proposed programs that they want to cut. By clicking on the “vote” button, you’re supporting the cutting of federal dollars to that particular program.
I actually ( and accidentally) voted to cut the one for “truck parking.”
So much for family values…
The three biggest entitlements in our country are, drumroll please:
-Social Security
-Medicare
-Military
But bicycling is a very close fourth, so I can totally see why the GOP would go for the low hanging fruit.
I made a helpful recommendation:
Cut war spending, imperial maintenance expenses, and military supported corporate ventures.
Estimated savings, $2.650 billion.
Deficit spending is a problem that threatens the existence of our nation. I would like to have better bike lanes but it is not the responsibility of the federal government to pay for local bike lanes. Fact is, we can make do with the bike lanes we have now. If possible when streets are repaved, bike lane markings should be added. This can be paid for by cutting local government waste – I’d start with an immediate 20% cut in all city, county, metro and state government. That will free up enough money to put in a lot of bike lanes.
Putting 5 proposals out per week, although better than none, is laughable. They should put out 5 per hour and get rid of ALL of them. Many cabinets should be eliminated – the federal government is a bloated monster and it is destroying our nation. I’d start with 10% cuts across the board, immediately in every department of the federal government. Next year do it again. Same with the year after that.
I see no error in the logic of this article:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/worse_than_a_depression.html
So you can vote to CUT these programs, but not to KEEP these programs? How democratic.
If there are not enough votes to cut them then I guess they stay. So, vote for one of the other programs.
Trek 3900, “I would like to have better bike lanes but it is not the responsibility of the federal government to pay for local bike lanes.”
I agree but the problem is that national highways are used for local trips. So national spending causes local congestion.