April 15 brought lots of attention to taxes and the expected increase in taxes because our spending is so out of control. But alas not much discussion about how we can reduce the spending of the federal government. Some folks will point out that such a high percentage of the budget goes to the military, social security, Medicare and Medicaid that it is not worth the time to start on the little things.
But alas being thrifty is a habit (just not in our government). Let’s build some momentum and actually start cutting programs, agencies and services from the federal government that are too expensive or too ineffective. It is kind of like a messy garage. Once the garage reaches a certain level of messiness you need to bring in the dumpster and start tossing stuff away. It is hard work but work that we need to get down to.
Here are 30 things the Federal Government should consider in reducing our spending today (other than cleaning up the huge medical insurance system we are about to have)!
1. Remove all agriculture subsidies and agricultural departments and shut down the Farm Credit and Small Business Administrations.
2. Disband the Mine Safety and Health Administration. We saw from the recent accident in West Virginia that they are not very effective. Replace the system with a simple massive penalty for every death that one incurs and for every accident that incurs on your job site. If you have a death then there is a $25 million penalty per loss of life (in addition to what is paid out in civil lawsuits). If there is loss of a limb then the company is fined $5 million. And for every $100 that the company is fined the CEO is fined an additional $1 out of his own pocket. Require a bond be posted to insure that the company and their insurance company have the wherewithal to pay the penalties.
3. Remove all energy subsidies and add a 50 cents a gallon tax on gasoline and diesel. Just look at the ethanol fiasco and ask yourselves what your average congressman knows about energy.
4. Shut down the US Department of Education and leave it entirely to the states and local governments.
5. Shut down all subsidies for public television, public radio and the arts (the Commission of Fine Arts to begin with). When PBS was created in 1970 there was little cable television, no Discovery Channel and no History Channel. We don’t need to subsidize this anymore.
6. Stop all lending of any kind (this includes college loans, small businesses and farms).
7. Shut down NASA. Let private enterprise go to space when they can make it pay off.
8. Slash pay and benefits to Congress and the Executive branch by 50%.
9. Eliminate all transportation subsidies.
10. Stop all scientific and medical research by the federal government other than that associated with National Defense. Let the private sector manage this.
11. Re-privatize the security function at airports. Privatize the air traffic control function.
12. Stop all subsidies for small local airports.
13. Charge the losing side in federal court actions for their share of the court costs.
14. Convert the federal retiree retirement program going forward from a traditional pension program to a 401K matching program.
15. Stop all programs that “serve” and I say serve very loosely the Native Americans. Specifically the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Give each Native American currently living on an Indian reservation a one time lump-sum payment and then get out of their way and leave them alone.
16. Stop all subsidies for rural families and communities.
17. Get the government out of all job training - they consistently train our fellow citizens for yesterday’s jobs.
18. Get the federal government out of the business of funding unemployment benefits.
19. Disband the US Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau. You don’t know what it does and neither do I.
20. Shut down the Food and Drug Administration. Replace it with a private system. For a new drug a company would have to post a bond for every pill they sell (say $50). So the bonding authority does the due diligence that the government does today and stands behind their research financially. The drug company must periodically publish how much is in this reserve bond for each of their drugs. A new drug would have little in the bond and potential users and their doctors would thereby recognize that this drug has less of a history and might pose more of a risk. As for food, I would use the same kind of bonding process. If you poison me then I can sue you for up to the amount in the bond for that food item.
21. Privatize all the Power Administrations (like Bonneville). There is no reason for the federal government to be in the electricity business and they are far less efficient than the private sector.
22. Shut down the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. The government is not very good at promoting good nutrition - so let’s leave this to the private and non-profit sector.
23. Let’s close down the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
24. Shut down the Corporation for National and Community Service. Americans volunteer more than any other country in the world and we don’t need a bunch of Washington bureaucrats urging us on while charging us far too much for this cheerleading.
25. Shut down the Office of English Language Acquisition. They are failing at their mission.
26. Close the Office of National Aids Policy. We needed a major effort to fight aids 30 years ago but now the disease is far more manageable and the causes are understood by any adult with an IQ over 90. Leave this problem to doctors, parents and churches to take forward. The government does not help.
27. Shutter the National Institute for Literacy. This organization never did much good for all the money they spent. This problem is much better being fought at the local level.
28. Close down the Peace Corps. Ask anyone that has served in this organization and you will find how useless they are.
29. Privatize the US Postal Service. Break it up and sell it off.
30. Close Radio Free Europe. Leave this to the EU.
I am not saying that none of these programs and agencies do any good. I am simply saying is that there is never any push back on expenses or changing their missions. The goal of every bureaucracy once established is to continue to exist. So a program gets stated and there is no constituency to reduce expenses and to notice when the function is no longer needed.
Posted via email from John's posterous
