The Cost Of Spending Cuts

by Stuart Shapiro

When deficit hawks talk about spending cuts, they often make it sound like all the money would come from the pockets of money grubbing bureaucrats.  Not really.  The first cuts would come from programs.  And many of those programs already do not have enough money to do their jobs.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a report yesterday recognizing the challenges in regulating imported products. The report acknowledges that the agency does not have “the resources to adequately keep pace with the pressures of globalization.”

In the report, entitled Pathway to Global Product Safety and Quality, the FDA unveils “a new strategy to meet the challenges posed by rapidly rising imports of FDA-regulated products and a complex global supply chain,” the agency’s news release said. This comes less than a week after the House passed an appropriations bill cutting funding for FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). With no support from Democrats, H.R. 2112 passed by a vote of 217-203. The bill cuts $2.6 billion in discretionary programs for child nutrition, research, conservation, and rural development, compared with last year’s levels.

Clearly cuts are going to happen.  And these cuts will have real world consequences.  Everyone should remember that when the next food poisoning outbreak occurs due to imported foods or the next unsafe toys are imported or the next . . .

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.