Hatch's cheap talk | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

In his op-ed, "Time to reform government, cut spending" (Opinion, Jan. 5), Sen. Orrin Hatch goes through the usual rant about cutting federal spending, but typically, he does not give even one clue as to what programs he would eliminate. Talk is cheap.

I was in a recent conversation where a person launched into a tirade about "getting government off our backs," etc. I asked him to list the top five government programs he would eliminate. After a long pause, he said he couldn't think of any.

His sole means of support were Social Security and Medicare. I reminded him that they were very expensive government programs and asked what he thought about eliminating them. He naturally and emphatically said, "No!"

As a follow-on to Hatch's promise that he "will not stop fighting to reduce federal spending once and for all," he now needs to give us his list.

Don Clark

Salt Lake City