what would you cut?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/Web/2010/052010/youcut-cantor/index_html

[MicroBalrog]

That's a majestically wimpy site. Even if you cut all of these things, the deficit wouldn't even budge.

[longeyes]

It's not about cuts, it's about amputation.  Better a one-legged Republic than a gangrenous socialist slave-state.

[taurusowner]

Completely disband all Departments and all the the agencies that fall under them except for the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Treasury, and Interior.  Implement a flat tax and reduce the size of the IRS to roughly 5-10% of its current size, and keep them only for the purpose of collecting the flat tax, nothing else. That would be a good start.

[sanglant]

or get rid of the irs and let the states collect taxes like the founders intended.

[230RN]

The presidential election fund ($260 million over five years).

Tax-subsidized union activities ($600 million over five years).

HUD stipends for doctoral research ($1 million over five years).

Certain welfare spending to states ($2.5 billion a year).

Reducing the income cutoff for communities receiving community block grants ($2.6 billion over five years).

One-tenth of a good start.  Others may argue, and insist that it's only 1/100th of a good start.  Ah, but what's an order of magnitude between friends?

I think Congress' depth of understanding is that a quadrillion is just four rillions, a trillion is only three million, and a billion is only two.

Terry, 230,000,000,000,000,000RN

"A million here and a million there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."  - Dirksen (paraquoted)

[longeyes]

What you will need to cut is not the Federal government but that swath of the American people that cannot and will not do without its plenary presence buoying them up.  And what percentage is that?  The problem is the culture, not the government per se.  Frankly, I think hopes of "reform" are otiose.  More plausible is collapse.

[seeker_two]

How about cutting....

Presidential Election Fund
Taxpayer Subsidized Union
HUD
Welfare
Community Development Block Grant program
Congress

....completely and entirely?....

[freedom lover]

or get rid of the irs and let the states collect taxes like the founders intended.

Suppose one year California, New York, Texas, and Florida decided not to give any money to the Feds. Then the following year (insert superpower here) invaded. What you're describing is the system spelled out in the articles of Confederation. The Continental Army almost starved to death because of that.

Completely disband all Departments and all the the agencies that fall under them except for the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Treasury, and Interior.  Implement a flat tax and reduce the size of the IRS to roughly 5-10% of its current size, and keep them only for the purpose of collectjavascript:void(0);ing the flat tax, nothing else. That would be a good start.

It seems that under your plan veterans would not be looked after (V.A.), states would not get federal money for their schools and have to massively increase property taxes (Dep of Ed), meat packing plants would not be inspected (Dep of Agriculture), the FDA would cease to exist (Dep of Health and Human Services), and the Coast Guard and Border Patrol would cease to exist (Homeland Security.) That's overkill.

Cutting out wasteful spending and programs is a noble thing. Our nation is very complex. The idea that the government can get away without dealing with the economy, consumer safety, and basic social welfare has been proved wrong by history. 

As for the flat tax: I see no reason why those who make more money should not pay more. That said, taxing the rich excessively would cause massive income tax fraud and a loss of revenue. The flat tax would also cause a loss of revenue we can't afford (as would tax cuts). Remember, there is no right to not be taxed when you are still being represented.

[freedom lover]

You'll all ask for what I want cut, but I'll have to post that later.

[seeker_two]

But we want you to tell us NOW!!!

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Interesting idea.  The programs in question are all small enough (and stupid enough!) that a bit of public involvement may actually be able to sway the Democrat leadership to implement the cut.

[zahc]

That's overkill.

Nope, just a good start.

I see no reason why those who make more money should not pay more.

Under a flat tax, those that make more DO pay more. Because they make more. See how that works?

[MicroBalrog]

states would not get federal money for their schools and have to massively increase property taxes (Dep of Ed),

Dude.

Do you know when the Department of Education was created? 1979. I.E. America got along just fine without it for 203 years.

Its entire budget  (as of 2009) comprises of 159.4 billion dollars, of which 90 billion are emergency funding related to the recovery attempts. Before the economic 'crisis', the budget was about 70 billion. State and private spending on education composes 902 billion dollars. The state governments could not get on without these 70 billion? Really?

The idea that the government can get away without dealing with the economy, consumer safety, and basic social welfare has been proved wrong by history. 

False dichotomy.

The Federal Government is not the only level of government existing in the United States. State governments and private individuals dealt with consumer safety and a degree of social welfare since 1776. There's never been - unlike what some people think - a reality where the poor and indigent starved in the streets willy-nilly. There had always been mechanisms, private or public, of dealing with the truly poor.

[Regolith]

Dude.

Do you know when the Department of Education was created? 1979. I.E. America got along just fine without it for 203 years.

And DHS didn't exist until 2001.  That could also be cut without a problem; just fold its various sub-agencies back into the departments they existed under before (Coast Guard back into DoD, border patrol back under the Justice Dept(?), ATF back into treasury [or disband entirely, which is my preferred solution to that particular entity], etc).

Quite frankly, it seems to me that all the DHS did was, instead of cutting through bureaucratic turf wars like it was designed to do, just created another layer of it.

Ragnar's list of cabinet departments is pretty close to the ones I'd keep as well.  The rest are pretty much just money sinks.

[longeyes]

Cutting "non-essential" departments is a facile theoretical exercise.  Imagining a Republic with the leadership and voting constituency to cut ANYTHING substantive is the task at hand.  How do we get THERE?

As we post Obama is encouraging a massive bail-out of "at-risk" public school teachers--aka Obama voters--and again stepping into a realm that is none of the Federal government's business. 

To get back to a society where it's not okay to write blank checks that are bound to "bounce" down the road is about more than just politics and electioneering.  Someone write that roadmap.

[taurusowner]

longeyes, I'm afraid what I think is on our horizon before we get to that point will probably get me a few tin foil hat smilies.  To be completely and totally honest, I think that before our nation can get to the point where the vast majority of people really care about self-sufficiency, individual liberty, and justice, we're gonna go through some very dark times.  And I don't mean "double digit unemployment" and low stock market numbers dark times.  I mean cars burning in the streets and looting on a national scale dark times. 

[longeyes]

Ragnar, you will get no arguments from me.  There is a phase in the transition from caterpillar to butterfly when the organism de-constitutes itself genetically.  I suspect we are on the verge of that kind of convulsive historical period.

[dm1333]

Coast Guard back into DoD,

Coast Guard back into DOT, not DOD!  The Navy doesn't want us there, we make them look bad! 

[Ron]

What you will need to cut is not the Federal government but that swath of the American people that cannot and will not do without its plenary presence buoying them up.  And what percentage is that?  The problem is the culture, not the government per se.  Frankly, I think hopes of "reform" are otiose.  More plausible is collapse.

otiose? Looked it up and like it, hurray a new word to use!

Good word, thanks!

(Ron likes words )

[kgbsquirrel]

Coast Guard back into DOT, not DOD!  The Navy doesn't want us there, we make them look bad! 

You guys still have a height requirement so if your boat sinks you can wade back to shore? 


After seeing the treatment of some HUD homes and hearing the horror stories, I think I'd cut that program first. Then again, I'd probably cut the bulk of the social/welfare programs and others things such as foreign aid, and a major overhaul of the military procurement system.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

what have you seen with hud homes?

[kgbsquirrel]

what have you seen with hud homes?

Gross disrepair and destruction in short order (months) upon occupation of the residence to the point that the structure is no longer habitable and the HUD program being left to expend tens of thousands of dollars more to repair the structure after the occupants leave.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

what hud program is that?

[KD5NRH]

Gross disrepair and destruction in short order (months) upon occupation of the residence to the point that the structure is no longer habitable and the HUD program being left to expend tens of thousands of dollars more to repair the structure after the occupants leave.

I saw the same fairly often when I worked pest control; filthy house, holes and stains in the drywall, (sometimes not much drywall left if the drug task force had been in before us) burns and stains in the carpet, appliances ripped out, trash everywhere, and yet there was a clean spot where the entertainment center had been.  Usually at that point, the housing agency was paying for us to come out and kill off enough roaches and rats for the remodeling crews to come in.

Often, these houses had started out quite a bit nicer than mine.  It's quite a testament to the skill of the remodeling crews that they didn't just mysteriously burn down, and actually looked habitable after a couple of weeks' work.