Meet Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), who evidently decided to make a fool of himself during a hearing on June 9th. Connolly doesn’t like how Republicans oppose tax increases to fund Congress’ reckless spending, so he decides to ask Fed Chair Ben Bernanke if there’s even enough spending to be cut. Seriously.

The video can be viewed here, but I’ve posted the transcript below.

CONNOLLY: I’m telling you, they don’t have an open mind. They have publicly expressed that they do not favor — you know, they’re all for deficit reduction as long as anything having to do with revenue is off the table. Can we get to serious deficit reduction — change that trajectory you talked about — if we eliminate half of the ledger sheet?

BERNANKE: Well, theoretically you could if you cut enough, but it would be very difficult to do that.

CONNOLLY: Is there enough spending to be cut?

BERNANKE: Of course! I mean … [laughs]

CONNOLLY: National defense, homeland security?

BERNANKE: That’s your judgment, that’s the Congress’ judgment. That’s not my judgment.

CONNOLLY: Ah. Um … it must be nice to be an economist.

*facepalm*

Is there enough spending to be cut? The FY2010 federal budget totals $3.8 trillion. We need to close a $1.3 trillion deficit. Do the math and you’ll find that we only need to cut the budget by 1/3 — not half — in order to eliminate to deficit.

In fact, as Ed Morrissey notes:

That $3.8 trillion, by the way, is $1.1 trillion more than the last budget from a Republican Congress, FY2007. If we returned to the FY2007 budget, we’d be almost all of the way there just by eliminating all of the spending increases inserted after Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took charge of the budgeting process.

The FY2000 budget was about $2 trillion. The FY2010 budget is $3.8 trillion. That despite the fact that inflation has been effectively non-existent over the last decade. And Connolly has the audacity to blame American taxpayers for the reckless spending habits of Congress? Despicable.