Don’t worry: I do not propose to give you a complete list. Otherwise we’d be here all day. But really, if government spending is a problem (and it is), why not shut down some agencies that spend money needlessly? A friend suggested we start with the two National Endowments, the one for the Arts (so-called) and the one for the Humanities. An excellent idea, and one which I would heartily support.
Objection one: “Haven’t they done good work?” Occasionally. Not very often, really. I thought (and said publicly) that Dana Gioia did excellent work at the NEA. But usually both endowments, and especially the arts endowment, have simply certified and promulgated the establishment, i.e., the left liberal, agenda emanating from Washington. Besides, why should the federal government get involved with the arts and the humanities anyway? That is the critical question. The answer is: it shouldn’t. Would you like a museum/opera house/concert hall in your town? Save up the money and go ahead and build it. Why should the taxpayers foot the bill?
Objection two: Europe! The state pays for culture in Europe. Aren’t Americans being philistines by not involving the state in culture?
Oh? Have you taken a look a Europe and its state-supported culture recently? Really, this objection is almost too embarrassing to answer. What makes you think that state involvement of culture leads to anything other than the growth of the state and its insinuation into areas of life they have no business being in? Take your time.
Objection three: “But the budgets of those agencies are so small, less than $200 million each. Nancy Pelosi eats that for lunch.” True, but you have to start somewhere. A journey of a thousand miles, etc., etc. Besides, getting rid of the Endowments would send a salutary, if largely symbolic, message to deans, arts administrators, and other parasitic busybodies. It would also get the government out of the embarrassing business of supporting “cutting-edge,” i.e., meretricious, art and “research.” Yes, on balance, I think dispensing with the Endowments would be a good thing all around.
I’d suggest also the Departments of Labor and Commerce. I’m not sure what their budgets are, but, whatever, they’re getting too much to do… just what, exactly? Commerce has the Census: that could be broken off into its own office (not in the White House, thank you) and the rest shut down. As for Labor, considering its such a hotbed of union cronyism these days, getting rid of it would be a favor to the nation.
The Census could be put over at Interior, where it might give them a larger viewpoint of their charge by having to deal with more than National Parks.
No, no. You don’t want to give any federal agency ideas about new things to do. We want them to have a narrow, highly restrictive viewpoint. Trust me on this one.
Don’t forget the Department of Energy. All they do is restrict the places and sources from which we may obtain obtain energy.
DOE also guards nuclear weapons when not actively deployed on a weapon platform. I do think that little bit shouldn’t be underfunded.
I would prefer the armed forces to protect nuclear materials. They have BIG guns.
And . . . . WHO guarded them before?
Somebody did, back when we didn’t need no stinkin’ energy dept.
Cut government surveys. They take forever and cost a fortune, and someone usually
already has the same information up online – and for free!
I happen to be a field interviewer for a number of federally-funded national research projects, past and present. You have no idea how much the federal government spends on such “research.” Neither does anybody else because as far as I know that data is not reflected in a single line item of the federal budget. In many cases costs are purposely hidden by breaking up contracts into small packets with deliberately obfuscatory descriptions making it difficult, if not impossible, to determine how much is being spent on a specific project.
I do not object to research per se. In my opinion it is better to have an informed basis for federal government policies, programs and activities than not. In fact some research projects are designed to assess the effectiveness of programs and to determine whether changes are needed to make them more effective.
However, also in my opinion, far too much of the research I have seen is duplicative, intrusive, or ends up being nothing more than a butt-covering exercise for bureaucrats unwilling to risk their own judgment; or worse, ending as nothing more than an employment or welfare program for bureaucrats and academics feeding at the government trough.
Lets get serious here- Department of Agriculture 130 BILLION dollars in 2010 (that up 20% this year by the way). You folks want to get real? Lets get real. Man the harpoons and target the sacred cows.
What NPR/PBS not on the list. They are number 1 on my list, with a bullet.
you mean, National Partisan Radio….?
Around here, it’s “Narcissist Propaganda Radio.”
“Some Things Considered.”
And kill EVERY subsidy. While it might force hardscrabble farmers such as Ted Turner to give up agriculture, and force ADM to decide if ethanol is important enough to pay for themselves, the rest of us should muddle through.
Everything listed comes from the Executive branch. I personally think there’s a lot of waste in the Legislative branch, especially right at the top. How about, at the very least, freezing all congressional salaries for 5 years and reducing staff size by 10% across the board. Lots of smart staffers, most of whom spend lots of time thinking of ways to centralize power in Washington.
And speaking of Washington, how about moving executive offices out of D.C.? The Department of Agriculture should be in Des Moines or Topeka, for example, and Energy someplace in New Mexico or Texas. Transportation? Wichita comes to mind. Treasury? Denver or Philly. State? Anyplace in flyover country. You get my drift. Get these bureaucracies out to red states and away from the critical mass they have in liberal la-la land. F
Better idea: freeze Congressional salaries permanently. Limit the Congressional session to two, ninety-day periods, one in January, one in July. The thermostats in all Congressional offices to be set at 55 degrees during the January session and 80 degrees for the July session. No person elected to any office under the United States may draw any pension or other form of compensation from the Treasury, except that which is provided by Social Security. (I’ll give the President half pay, the VP 25%, but no Secret Service, no library funds and no government travel, except if ordered by the current President.) No person who has served in any elected office may perform any lobbying activity after his term in office. Any elected official who inserts language into any bill which, directly or indirectly, specifies how funds are to be spent shall be considered guilty of corruption, fined an amount equal to what he proposed to spend (or confiscation of all assets, whichever is greater) AND serve a term in a federal penitentary equal to his total time in office as of the date of the proposal or passage of the bill he sponsored.
I’ve got more, but I’ve got to jump in a shower and get to work.
Well The Last Klansman, robert Byrd, managed to get the HQ of the US Coast Guard moved to West Virginia, a state without a navigable waterway. Very clever, no?
But you are right that there is lots of waste in the Legislative Branch. Nancy Pelosi does not need to fly in a private jet to her home every weekend. Congresscritters have staffs and entourages bigger than FDR did.
But I’m not so sure about the salary cap. I liked Thomas Sowell’s suggestion: pay the Congresscritters ten million a year each, but also make it so none can serve more than one term.
Do not cut the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. Lets add new endowments for currently not supported culture: National Endowment for Monster Trucks, National Endowment for Rodeo Cowboys, National Endowment for the preservation of Hog Calling and other Rural life styles and my favorite, National Endowment for the preservation of Square Dancing and Bolo Ties.
NotaYank,
I am intrigued by what you say and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Like farm subsidies in Manhattan -
http://www.optimist123.com/optimist/2007/11/farm-subsidies-.html
They rent/sharecrop the farmland out to a grower in South Dakota or someplace and pocket the subsidy back around their Central Park address. Either you ‘Green Acres’ your butt out there or get off the welfare for the well to do.
Department of Energy has the nuclear weapon complex, which includes reactors, and special nuclear materials. The Atomic Energy Commission should be reestablished for those. Merge the Nuclear Regulatory Commission into the new AEC.
All based on the proposition that someone else is going to pay for your free lunch.
AND regulatory agencies have a tendency to get captured by the industries they regulate. See the broughaha regarding the monks making coffins.
One more item regarding Dept. of Ag. Are you aware of the regulations which allow industry associations to set price and quality standards (effectively excluding the market from such decisions)? The one I can point to based on my upbringing (not far from VDH’s farm in the San Joaquin Valley) is the Raisin Bargaining Association. Other ag industries do similar.
Please get rid of the Ad Council, their constant barrage of in-your-face sermons (commercials) make me go bat s$it crazy.
Quibble: Dept. of Education was created under Carter, not LBJ.
Energy includes nuclear weapons research and fabrication, which could shift to Defense but probably shouldn’t just be eliminated.
Most of HUD is actually things like FHA… some HUD programs could be eliminated, others, like home finance, need to be part of a government-wide reform and rationalization.
If you just got rid of Labor, who would administer NLRA? Yeah, the current administartion’s approach is very damaging, but unless you change NLRA to require a lot less oversight, someone is going to be doing it.
Ag subsidies, definitely cut. A lot.
What about CPB? Most of SBA?
Congress? Cut its budget by half, they have way too many staff who make way too much money, it just encourages them to stick their noses in more placers they don’t belong.
Can’t eliminate EPA, but it could certainly use a 25% haircut and be forced by law to focus on real environmental problems instead of the fashionable cause du jour.
Of course, all of this other than ED is just drops in the bucket. We have to deal with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Department of Education.
Department of Agriculture.
Certainly Founders were familiar with both, and gave Congress no powers for either.
Make sure you know what the agencies really do before you advocate cutting them. For example, the Department of Energy is the civilian agency responsible for the US nuclear arsenal. Since this is clearly a function related to national security, it is also a constitutional undertaking by the federal government. The US does not have the nuclear weapons programs under military control for a good reason. The DOE has indeed acquired many additional functions over the years, but it has some very much required core functions (it also is responsible for the cleanup of the old cold war nuclear facilities).
It doesn’t matter whether the National Endowments do good work or not. Sponsoring art and humanities projects is a luxury that is only affordable by very rich people with the money let over after they pay for everything they need and most of the rest of what they want. America is not a rich county any more, and it only appeared rich in the recent past because we were borrowing money to spend.
Good work or bad work, we can’t afford the National Endowments. Ditto most of Amtrak. And that community center in your neighborhood. And that fancy new “high speed” rail project for a small number of heavily-subsidized riders. And thousands of other things. They’re good or they’re not, either way we can’t afford them.
A whole lot of smaller departments will have to be dismantled before the big ones start feeling the pressure. Sure, each one individually is small potatoes. But they are potentially easier to tackle, they are unquestionably wasteful, and once they are gone, energies can be refocused on bigger targets. Just getting rid of several small programs would convince me that something is actually going to happen. Name an agency that has been dismantled in the last 20 years. Not merged into something different, but actually eliminated. I can’t think of any. I’d be interested to hear about any success stories. Even the small ones will be next to impossible to eliminate. Frankly, I’m not sure even small programs are going to get the axe, let alone the DoE or DoA.
I am a long retired English maths teacher and I can tell you that the British Education Department did much more harm than good, even 20 years ago. It should be closed down and all its staff sacked.
Most of the West has been living beyond its means for the last fifteen years or so. The time has come for the great winnowing of the public sector!
I like that. Destructive, unaffordable.
Succinct.
True.
I’ve wanted for some time to sit down with a few other people (too big to tackle myself) and make a list of these cuts. Draw up a proposed alternate budget and send it to Washington. Naive, I know, but it’s the kind of thing that I’m good at, and who knows, maybe someone would listen. Miracles do happen. But I have to wonder – how much expertise would such a group need to choose the right cuts? Granted, a strict reading of the Constitution would lead to many large cuts, but what about smaller ones scattered amongst legitimate Federal business? I firmly believe that you don’t need a whole room full of over-paid policy wonks to do it. Where would I find like-minded people with the necessary knowledge?
Amtrak.
A merely 1.5 billion/year and then that 8-billion in ARRA money, but this is largely symbolic. Right-thinking people hate cars because they are disdainful of the freedom of movement it affords, but they are reluctant to stoop to buses, because those are meant for the out-of-sight underclass.
The Department of Education was created under Carter in 1979. Otherwise, the description is pretty accurate.
We could do without the Hope Diamond. We could do without many treasures our government clings to which aren’t necessary.
We could auction half the Smithsonean museums and a million square miles of land and not betray the Constitution.
It’s past time to start sacrificing government fat.
Social Security and Medicare. These are what is draining the budget and are not legitimate functions of government as authorized by our founding documents.
Any solution which does not include either slowly privatizing these functions of reforming them into something unrecognizable is doomed to failure. Obama will bankrupt us sooner but these will bankrupt us just as surely.
Right now though I think we would all settle for just putting back everything to where it was before Obama took office. If the Republicans can accomplish at least that much then we will all be well and truly happy.
To be frank, I don’t care if they have to shut the whole federal government down. I can’t think of any service they provide that I wouldn’t be better off without — outside of maybe the FBI and the military.
Agreed. Either everyone is forceably enrolled in SS or no one is!
Also, any job that private enterprise can do for 15% less than government employees MUST be done by private enterprise.
EPA? Doesn’t each state already have one? No need for duplication.
Government pensions? None for elected or appointed officials with the exception of President or Supreme Court justice. And no one can draw until 60 years old unless disabled. And then disability is reduced by the pension amount or vice versa.
Our local school board has a ‘Grants’ office. Employs 3 year round. Last year they secured 69K in grants. They almost paid for one year of benefits and salary of one of them. If no federal Dept of Ed then no need for those 3 leeches.
LOL – if you really want to get real, we must ask ourselves where in the US Armed Forces we can cut costs. A few points to consider:
No one I’ve ever worked with in the USAF ever really knew how to POM effectively. We usually just took each year’s budget and multiplied by some number (usually a bit more than inflation). At the base/wing level, asking people to take time out of their daily jobs and do something that only a few full-time Washington Bureaucrats understand is a recipe for pencil-whipped bull-shit.
If you’ve ever seen a military organization (or possibly any government organization – I don’t know), at the end of the Fiscal Year (in Sept) you would see the results of this process. Each org saves as much money as they can while performing their mission (good!) only to try to spend it before the Fiscal Year ends so someone somewhere up their chain decides they didn’t really need all that money (bad!). Why not add a promotion multiplier to managers/leaders/officers for those who accomplish their mission while NOT spending every penny. Of course, those with a direct security mission would be exempt(direct security mission meaning lives are directly at stake, not the games people play that end up having the local base golf course indirectly winning the GWOT).
In my fantasy world, government employees would be unable to form a union, especially military civilian employees.
Finally, if you really want to think about impossible things, it’s time to make pay raises in the military much more targeted. Some people make less than they could as civilians, but a large number (officers especially) make LESS money when they leave.
Reagan tried to get rid of the Department of Education but failed. Now, 30 years later and having seen what it has accomplished, it should be much easier to get rid of it.
You forgot the EPA.
And how about cutting all foreign aid to countries who vote against us in the UN? Which brings up the question of our participation and funding of that august body of anti-Americanism.
A serious examination of the products and results of every governmental agency would be a great idea. Which is why it will never happen.
Here’s an idea: save some bucks by laying off the army of civil servants who are responsible for coming up with all the lame “.gov” websites.
I see red (and green $$) when I see one of these ridiculously named sites. The only thing I can think of is the amount of my tax money the government is spending on naked propaganda.
Here are few of my favorites:
healthfinder.gov
kids.gov
recovery.gov
flu.gov
nutrition.gov
energystar.gov
dotgov.gov
boosterseat.gov
loseyourexcuse.gov
letsmove.gov
4parents.gov
smallstep.gov
drugabuse.gov
insurekidsnow.gov
steroidabuse.gov
getinvolved.gov
clubdrugs.gov
mypyramid.gov
energysavers.gov
windpoweringamerica.gov
globalchange.gov
climatescience.gov
financialstability.gov
mymoney.gov
pimpmyride.gov (OK, I made that one up)
How about closing everything other than Treasury, Defense and Justice Departments, and a small handful of record-keeping agencies (Copyright Office, Patent and Trademark Office, that sort of thing)?
The list is long. And, you realize, that every government worker creates the votes, and the mindset, for the wealth-destroying vortex we are in?
You remember we have 7 (if I’m up on this) intelligence agencies? I can hardly stand our endless wars, and I’m a former army officer, its not necessary. The social welfare spending on education and housing at the federal level is a true sorceror’s apprentice which now sweeps thru the land.
But in a sense, its all bs. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Cut them back or go bankrupt. Sorry, that’s the only way. You will indeed have every senior in the country mad at you, and have to do it anyway.
I’m always amused when I talk about returning to small government with some big government leftist and they ask (seriously!), what would you cut? Implying that there is nary an ounce of fat on the beast. My reply is usually “Give me a copy of the budget and a red pen and I’ll have the budget in surplus with room for a large tax-cut by dinner.”
Dept of Education – gone
Dept of Energy – gone
Dept of Labor – gone
Dept of HHS – gone
Dept of HUD – gone
Agricultural subsidies – gone (Is there anything else dept of Ag does these days, if not eliminate it as well)
Homeland security folded into Dept of Defense, duplicate functions eliminated
Dept of Defense (even though I think it’s one of the few legitimate things the Feds do, can eliminate a fair amount of waste as well and probably provide better defense for half the cost. Increase soldiers pay and eliminate the pork weapons systems)
Dept of Veterans affairs – also eliminate lots of waste and fold essential veterans services back into Dept of Defense
Exit from UN, let the third world thugs who drive its agenda pay for it. Sell the prime riverfront real estate in NYC.
Medicare, Medicaid, So-so security – put all the liabilities back on budget so people know what’s actually been promised and why there’s no way we can pay it, start raising eligibility requirements and reducing benefits and begin privatization ala Chile so that people actually do have trust fund accounts and younger employees don’t get stuck with a 40 year savings account with a negative interest rate.
That should more than eliminate the deficit and that’s without the budget and a red pen.
How about the EPA? This hopelessly scientifically incompetent bureaucracy does incalculable harm to our economy and is a major threat to our liberty. That small segment of its work that is important could be done at the state level with more sensitivity to scientific accuracy and agreed-on social goals.
No point in prolonging the agony of the USPS.
Tax and spend ONLY for the “general welfare.” Put an end to grants, grantsmanship, and grant-hunting with all the incidental expenses. There’s no political system that can withstand the vast temptations for boondoggling. And there’s no way to account for the opportunity costs.
Let’s not use that general welfare excuse any more. Test all expenditures by the Constitutional grants of authority to the federal government and return to defined powers.
Correct. The GW clause would swallow the Constitution if it were given the bogus interpretation urged by those who love Leviathan.
I propose a graphic, “Race to the Top” showing the annual increases in the budgets of all the Fed agencies over the last 20 years, say.
It should go without saying that any program the Pentagon doesn’t want but Congress forces on them should be cut instantly. That’s in tens of billions range easily.
Under President Bush, Bruce Cole did a good job as director of the NEH. The problem there and other places is the entrenched Leftist staff.
The NEA, which has a Leftist political agenda, funds some really bad art by so-called artists. We do not need to support and promote more bad art.
So, get rid of both of them and NPR/PBS and all the rest of the dead wood in Washington.
“Can’t eliminate EPA, but it could certainly use a 25% haircut and be forced by law to focus on real environmental problems instead of the fashionable cause du jour.”
Why couldn’t we? I think the EPA could be wiped out, and its function performed very nicely by a much smaller department within Interior. It’s main function is to prevent people in flyover country from building a shed on their property because a spotted owl was seen on their property and things like that.
Also, I have a real feeling that defense needs a major haircut if we’re ever to have a balanced budget. As someone above stated, we’re no longer a rich country. Time to massively scale back the global police force, and let other countries take care of their own areas (or not). We should redesign our forces from their current mission of projecting overwhelming power anywhere in the world inside of a week to simply making sure that anybody who ever attacks us militarily will be very, very sorry. I’d think we could easily cut our military in half expense-wise if that’s the goal.
And I’m still trying to figure out why we have the FBI, local, county and state police, NSA, US Marshals, border patrol, Interpol, INS, customs and whatever else is out there, and we still need Homeland Security (which always seemed like a creepy name to me anyway). Couldn’t we eliminate HS, plus one or more of these others and fold them together into a tighter, more integrated security system?
The National Endowments for the Arts and for the Humanities don’t need to be eliminated: Just privatize them like the Reaganites were able to do with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Phase out their funding by 20% per year for five years, then let them sink or swim. The National Trust did just fine under that program. It gave them time to develop a voluntary funding base which was far more stable than politically allocated money, depoliticized them, and now the Trust is supported to exactly the degree the people who care are willing to pay.
Education, Agriculture, Commerce, most of Energy: just shut them down. And sell off non-park “public” lands to the highest bidders.
The Pentagon is actually seriously taking an axe to it’s own programs, including limiting the number of fifth-generation fighters on which land forces depend to maintain air superiority. Yes, they’re expensive, but so are defeat and death. I second the Ad Council, buying expensive air time for slickly produced reminders to be a good Dad, go to the library, get your colonoscopy, and how to tell if your friend is depressed. We can’t afford these inane luxuries. Other domestic agencies, which
As Mitch Daniels has said, “You’d be amazed by the amount of government you never miss.”
As a Canadian, and a huge fan of your constitution, I would suggest that the spirit of the constitution be respected and all powers not granted by the Constitution to the feds be divested to the States if they want them. Ag, arts, labor, ed, and after the smoke clears on those… and the trillions of dollars from that re-invested in legitimate Federal powers, the taxes could be cut way back and the States could increase theirs to pay for the shift in responsibilities.
The spending is out of control and unless it is brought back to reality, the greatest country in the world will become an Argentina or Mexico before your eyes.
It’s small potatoes in the money department, but would have a huge impact on government: fire all the “Czars”, and make it illegal ever to create such an office again.
The NEA and the NEH are such small potatoes that you might as well leave them alone. I think their budgets are in the millions, rather than the billions. Some of what they do is good, and much is bad, and I’d rather leave the part that does good stuff alone.
You left out the Post Office. I’m not sure whether that’s on-budget, off-budget, quasi-governmental or what now. It has a lot of real estate for its facilities, and it and its facilities could and should be sold off to private enterprise.
You also left out the Department of Agriculture. Is there really any need for farm subsidies nowadays? Does it still provide a useful educational facility? If not, get rid of it.
EPA. Get rid of it. It’s shown itself to be useless, and often harmful.
Just go through the budget, and axe about 90 to 95% of spending, and we’ll all be better off.
At one of the Academy Awards shows, I forget which, many of the honorees took the opportunity to pitch for more those who said that gave a tenth of their annual income to the NEA it would be funded beyond its current dreams and the luminaries would still have enough money to live riotously. But these very rich folks get satisfaction out of letting us pay for it.
When do we get rid of Head Start? Millions for that, and the effects are gone at the end of 1st grade.
Why not get pare down the Drug Enforcement Agency? Make plant generated drugs like marijuana, cocaine and heroin legal, but regulated. That is tested for quality and reasonably taxed. Chemical drugs such as meth and LSD would still be illegal. That ought to eliminate the Mexican drug cartels, and the law enforcement complex nailing kids for smoking joints.
The taxes ought to be great enough to cover the regulations: pot smokers want to smoke pot, and coke users want coke. Make sure their stuff isn’t being cut with toxins, and all traces of pesticides, insecticides and herbicides are out of the pot. That tax shouldn’t be punitive or a revenue bonanza.
The Edward Hebert University of Military Health Sciences,established over the objections of the Pentagon who stated the manpower needs could be filled cheaper and better by scholarships,and now a cherished boondoggle and sinecure factory.
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM),funding trendy pseudoscience and quackery since 1991 to the tune of over $800,000,000 and has yet to find an effective alternate therapy.
Excellent article. Human Events did a great piece a few years ago on outdated and unnecessary government agencies, which, if eliminated, could save taxpayers billions. Are they still around? Of course. Sadly, it will take a catastrophe of some sort for our so-called ‘leaders’ to make any significant cuts in government spending.
I would add cutting about 90% of Foreign Aid to the list.
Separate school and state completely. Sell off all school assets to private schools that are honest about what they’ll teach. That’ll retire some debt.
New tax of 110% of all government pensions that weren’t fully funded at vesting, while allowing the beneficiaries to switch to a less generous pension with no tax penalties.
Tax abortion at the victim’s share of the federal debt (currently around $160,000).
Just want to reiterate that the Agriculture department is budgeted at over 140 Billion dollars for 2011. Let’s put that in context: That is more than any other nation spends on their MILITARY BUDGET. Thats DOUBLE what the UK spends on their military. Thats more than the GDP of Hungary.
That’s more than the nation of India spends on its entire federal budget.
We need to get our head around the sheer scope of what we are spending in Washington. Anybody that claims we can’t really cut much spending is either a breathtakingly brazen liar, or an ideologically blinded fool.
If both houses of Congress had half as many people, would the damage caused by Congress drop by half?
Simpler to list what the government should do and scrap the rest. Armed forces, police, courts. That’s about it.
Certainly almost all regulatory bodies should be shut down. The average citizen has more to fear from the EPA or FCC than the NSA.
#19. “But I have to wonder – how much expertise would such a group need to choose the right cuts?”
C’mon – you’re a taxpayer – that’s the expertise you need. You’ve seen the discussion play out here regarding DOE.
First step – get started. #39 gives you the structure. Do it now. Do it as quickly as possible – get the list out there, and look for “cheap kills. NEA/PBS = cheap kills”. Build as you go. #27 and #30 are a great start. don’t get bogged down and stay on task!
Put your list out here and I’ll be happy to steal it to send on. Many of us would.
Oh by the way, #29 – we have at least 16 intel agencies, not seven. Ref http://www.fas.org/irp/official.html
And, note: that’s just the so-called “Intelligence Community”, which does not include ” tactical military intelligence and security organizations, as well as those responsible for security responses to transnational threats, to include terrorism, cyber warfare and computer security, covert employment of weapons of mass destruction, narcotics trafficking, and international organized crime.” (see site above)
Thanks for the encouragement. Just limiting the expenditures to Constitutionally mandated purposes would put a huge dent in things, I think. My other concern, though, is sheer man-hours. If there is anyone out there who would be willing to help, especially with a little basic financial background, I’d love an extra set of eye.
And that starts today. Oyster out.
One of my thoughts was to send a copy of the finished proposal to members of Congress and the White House. Spreading it around the blogosphere would certainly be helpful as well. When it’s done, I’ll make sure you get a copy. But I have to get it done first.
Aviation. General aviation gets a largely free ride. Localities should pay for their own airports and navigation aid and pilots should pay the cost of their instrument flight plans.
NASA could use some serious trimming. People who want to fly into space can pay for it themselves.
I can describe what I would keep faster than what I would eliminate.
Keep:
Defense (cut substantially to eliminate earmarks, duplicative weapons and aircraft, most research, DIA, and all consultants; fold in CIA with a career civil servant as Director reporting to SecDef.)
Patent and Trademark Office
National Park Service
Census Bureau
National Weather Service
Air Traffic Control
FBI and U.S. Attorneys, with a minimal Department of Justice to oversee them
Regulation of SAFETY in all energy production by one central agency – nuclear, oil drilling on- and offshore, mining, hydropower, wind
Centers for Disease Control
Food and Drug Administration
Food Safety and Inspection Service
Border Security
Regulation of TOXIC substances (NOT so-called “greenhouse gases”
Maintenance of existing federal highways
Monitoring of federal elections and standardization of voting procedures
Federal courts
That’s pretty much it.
How about we make congresscritters work from an office in their district/state and only go to Washington once a year for the SOTU address. With the VTC capabilities we have, they can do speeches, meeting, and votes from their home. Lobbyists must live in their district/state, and must have significant business in that district/state to lobby. That would cut staffers (don’t need them in both DC and home), would greatly increase the cost to lobby, cut the amount of ‘pork’ being appropriated, and help clean out the rat’s nest.
I’m all for trimming, restructuring the Dept of Ag, but remember, they have the US Forest Service. And they run the extension service that disseminates research to the local level. Figure out a way to integrate the essential elements into something that works. Toss the rest.
Complete rewrite of the tax code. Eliminate the not for profit exemption as it is a farce. No business can survive without making a profit. The not for profit has become a tax shelter for political activist. Better yet eliminate all corporate taxes. The end user of goods and services always pays the tax anyway. Hidden taxes are a lie. Let the people see how much they are really paying in taxes when they buy something. Let people see that their employer is not really paying half their SS deduction. Not only would billions be saved in government bureaucracy, billions spent now on compliance would be saved in the private sector as well.
I work for Sandia National Laboratories, until I retire at the end of this year. The National Laboratories don’t just guard weapons, they design and build them. Sandia is also involved with energy research (i.e. oil recovery and well logging), biomedical research (implantable sensors), nuclear proliferation, and special projects for the military not involving nuclear weapons (i. e. synthetic aperture radar for UAVs.)
This list is not exhaustive.
There was a passing mention about getting rid of the DEA. Add BATFE to chopping list. Taxation of alcohol could go back to Treasury and drop the rest. (Repeal the Firearms Act, 1934 which started the ‘if we can tax it, then if fits into the Commerce Clause’ stupidity.
Follow Jefferson (Andrew Jackson?): public charity does not fall under the ‘General Welfare’ Clause, so ALL grants, gifts, non-recourse loans and such are forbidden.
No publicly funded building or construction may be named after a politician until 10 years after his death (Presidents excepted). Existing ‘monuments’ to be scrubbed.. bye bye Byrd’ie!
I would add (although it is OT)… terms limits,and a mathematically derived topological method of determining district boundaries so as to make gerrymandering impossible. All districts to be within a 5% range of population.
Wow, I felt tingles all the way to my wallet.
The only way to achieve the end goal (smaller government, balanced budget, lower taxes for those of us who still pay them) is to restructure the Federal government. This offers endless opportunities to save BILLIONS every year. We could, quite literally, have a balanced budget in a year or two at most.
For example:
1. Do what small business has done: cut ALL salaries (including the Prez, legilators, Supreme Court, etc.) by 20-30% and freeze ALL discretionary spending, effective immediately.
2. Restructure/consolidate/streamline the cabinets to reflect the Constitution and current needs and eliminate duplication.
3. Stop all federal hiring immediately and reduce the number of federal employees by 20% over a three-year period. (On average, 7% leave federal government every year, so this could be accomplished by natural attrition.)
4. Adopt zero-based budgeting. Once the restructured cabinet has been defined, nothing is sacrosanct. Every department, division, program, employee and expense must be examined before $1 is allocated to sustain the effort into the future.
5. Consolidate, eliminate and designate a single “responsible” agency. The current structure uses duplicative programs in multiple departments to hide costs: Welfare consists of 85 programs scattered among 6 cabinet agencies to the tune of $700 billion a year, and that same costly, confusing, wasteful approach is repeated in every major federal program.
6. Read “National Suicide” (Martin Gross) for a detailed prescription for restructuring and streamlining government, cutting pork and fat, and balancing the budget.
7. Set automatic funding expirations (per Gross) rather than automatic funding renewals, so ineffectual programs disappear.
Free-Range Oyster, sign me up, I’m an idiot who likes a challenge. It’s not rocket science, it’s Spreadsheet Basics 101. I’m sharpening my red pencils in eager anticipation.
Texas Pete, don’t pop a vein, but check out how much our beloved gov spent in “Recovery” funds to upgrade and redesign all those .gov sites.
Any candidates for office reading this? Listen up. Take notes. The article/comments here reflect what needs to happen and what this voter expects you to start tackling on day 1.
If you’re serious about jumping into this, and for anyone else who is, please drop me a line at freerangeoyster at gmail dot com. I’ve got most if not all of the data collected, now I just need to figure out how to arrange it for analysis and how to divide up the work with those who want to help. I don’t know if the end result will be politically viable, but it will be A) Constitutional and B) fiscally sound.
I would like someone to explain to me why we still run our military complex like 1945 with bases all over the world. As long as the military budget is “off limits” social security and medicare and medicaid will be protected. Why should we give a damn about protecting the French or the Phillipines? Why don’t we run military bases along the Mexican border? It would seem to me that service men and women spending money in US small businesses from auto dealers to bars and restaurants makes a hell of a lot more sense than supporting a community with a base in Germany.
NPR- defunded. If this malignancy is so wonderful, let it go to ads or subscription from all the unionistas and teachers that listen to all the commie Cr**ola;Which means Buh-bye NPR. (Good riddance)
I quickly glanced at the budget summary and came up with an additional $1.4 billion by eliminating the Corporation for National and Community Service, where Americorps, Learn and Serve America, Senior Corps and the Social Innovation Fund are housed.
Here’s my modest proposal: The National Endowment for the Arts should be divided into the National Endowment for Symphony Orchestras and the National Endowment for Homoerotic, Antiamerican, Antisemetic and Antichristian Art. The two endowments should be funded in different bills.
Outside the San Francisco Bay Area and Massachusetts, there will not be a whole lot of political support for the second of those budget items.
There is an excellent analysis, on a department-by-department basis, of how to cut the federal budget by closing a number of these agencies and/or reassigning the few useful tasks that some of them perform at the CATO Institute website: http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/;
Roger: I would like to help, really I would. The problem is that Government departments appear or change their names so often that I don’t know where to start. What about HEW? Does it still exist? Has it been subsumed into HHS?
Although FDR is now the poster boy for the alphabet soup of regulatory agencies of the New Deal, he at least didn’t create any new cabinet level departments. When I was a schoolboy I knew every one of them and the names of their Secretaries. To recite them now makes me profoundly sad—Secy. of State Cordell Hull, Secy. of War Henry Stimson, Secy. of the Navy Frank Knox, Secy. of the Interior Harold Ickes, etc. etc. Oh, the humanity! I will content myself with just one suggestion. Get rid of the damned Department of Energy.
They will just resurrect under different names. As long as the incentive to get people from other districts to fund your pet project continues we are sunk.
Have each congressman responsible for the spending of the tax revenues ONLY of those people who voted for him. On each standard spending bill the representative decides how much (if any) to spend on each line item.
Mandatory spending bills require 67% to pass as long as it results in no congressman exceeding his revenues for the year. Otherwise it requires 90% to pass. The percentage taken from general revenues and each individual Reps revenues must be equal.
Revenue of each Rep that is unspent at the end of the fiscal year is refunded to his voters proportionately to what they paid in taxes. Unspent Revenue for those who are not represented is also refunded proportionately to what they paid.