Federal Spending Cuts: Where To Start? How About Everywhere?
by GREGORY D. LEE
May 13, 2010
The Greece meltdown is a looking glass for the future of the United States if it doesn’t start cutting back on its insatiable spending now – not later.
With the government’s debt at $13 trillion and trillions more expect in the next decade, the U.S. is about to fall off the cliff into an abyss unless something is immediately done. With the country turning rapidly to socialism with socialized medicine, extended unemployment payments, Social Security being bankrupt, Medicare not meeting funding requirements soon, the U.S. will go the way of Greece, except there won’t be anyone around who can afford to bail us out. We’re essentially using one charge card to pay off another.
Congress is the only entity that can spend taxpayers’ money. It is imperative that it bite the bullet and initiate massive spending cuts in order to secure a future for our grandchildren. Anything less than massive spending cuts will only be a Band-Aid on a wound that requires a tourniquet. Where should Congress start its budget cutting? It can start with itself.
For openers, the idea of members of Congress taking military flights to any event is unacceptable. They can take commercial airliners like the rest of us. Members who visit a warzone would be the only exception, but I encourage them to stay stateside and let the military finish its job without them looking for a photo op at taxpayer expense.
Don’t cut, but completely eliminate the departments of Education, Commerce and Agriculture. There is no good reason to have the federal government impose its standards on local school districts in return for grants. Why do we need a Department of Commerce to promote U.S. business interests, a form of corporate welfare, when these businesses for years have proven themselves very successful in doing just that? The Department of Agriculture serves no useful purpose other than to give rich farmers, some of whom are members of Congress, large undeserved subsidies. Food stamps, a Department of Agriculture program, must advertise for participants. It should stop funding the purchase of potato chips and dip.
The Department of Health and Human Services must go as well – or probably be reduced at least 50 percent.
After receiving encouragement from Congress, Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae funded sub-prime loans to people without a down payment and no hope of making the monthly payments. They had “no skin in the game,” as the president is fond of saying. That action almost took down the entire economy when the housing bubble burst. They need to go out of business.
Politicians always say that cutting “fraud, waste and abuse” will reduce costs. They have been saying that as long as I can remember. Yet, fraud, waste and abuse continue. Politicians need a new slogan, because obviously nothing has happened to reverse this trend. When Congress throws more money at a program, it only serves to feed the fraud and waste.
Cut regulation. More regulation means increased business expenses, which translates to fewer profits, which translates to less government revenue. Congress is quick to regulate an airline’s carry-on baggage policy, banks and the gas mileage automobile manufacturers must meet, but they exempt themselves from any law or regulation it passes. Small businesses, the engine of the U.S. economy, refuse to hire because they continue to hear about Congress’s intent to bring more regulation and higher taxes. Until small business owners hear otherwise, they will hold back in hiring because they don’t know what the future brings.
Bring half of our troops in Iraq home, and send the other half to quickly finish the job in Afghanistan. Iraq has become dependent on the U.S. to provide for its security and to rebuild its infrastructure while banking at least $8 billion of surplus in its annual budget. Time is up.
Stop rebuilding Afghanistan until the Taliban is rooted out once and for all. Send all the expensive contractors home and let Afghanistan pay for them once the enemy is defeated militarily.
End foreign aid. It only seems to make recipients more dependent on us, instead of themselves. The days of giving Africa $60 billion dollars for AIDS prevention is over. We simply cannot afford it.
Do these suggestions sound harsh? I think they are realistic. Otherwise, the country will spiral downward and everyone will be left holding the proverbial bag.
Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Gregory D. Lee is a retired Supervisory Special Agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the author of three criminal justice textbooks. While on DEA diplomatic assignment in Pakistan, he was involved in the investigation of several notable terrorism events and arrests. He recently retired after more than 39 years of active and reserve service from the U.S. Army Reserve as a Chief Warrant Officer Five Special Agent for the Criminal Investigation Division Command, better known as CID. In 2011 he completed a combat tour of duty in Afghanistan while on special assignment to the Special Operations Command Europe. Visit his website at http://www.gregorydlee.com/ and contact him at info@gregorydlee.com.
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