Okay, here’s where I get a little squirrelly on you, because I do think our Federal government is bloated, disorganized, and inefficient. It has accumulated various functions (including agriculture, education, and housing) that could properly be reserved to the States now that every State actually has a functioning government of its own.
The U.S.A. was formed in a time when most of today’s States didn’t exist, most of the others were little more than social clubs for white landowners, it might take months to receive a letter, and there were no other ways to communicate with people unless you were actually in the room with them.
Slavery was legal, religious discrimination was legal, voting rights were heavily restricted, women had very few legal rights, and it was not easy to bring together enough people to make decisions on behalf of the whole new nation.
Now we can communicate instantaneously with people all over the world, give or take a few time zones; transmit images and documents with ease; speak face to face with people continents away. Best of all, every adult citizen now has the right to vote. Plus, let me repeat, every State now has a functioning government.
So how many things should the Federal government be doing?
Proposed new Efficiency Czar says he can cut 2 trillion from the 6.75-trillion US budget. (He says that the Federal government’s 400+ agencies should be cut down to 99 or fewer. Click HERE for an index.) Analysts say this is possible, but here’s the catch: every single cut from the Federal budget will strip away services that citizens want, expect, and in some cases rely on.
Click CBO for a link to infographics about Federal revenues and spending.
Services not provided by the Federal government can be provided by the States. Of course the States will then have to raise taxes and bloat their own bureaucracies – or they can say “if you don’t want to pay for Service A, that’s fine, but that means you don’t get Service A.”
Click HERE for a quick take on what a radically-reimagined Federal government would provide. Below, some comments on what an Efficiency Czar would need to cut to actually get the job done.
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Okay, did you read the limited-government outline? Is it radical? Sort of. Revolutionary? Not at all. The Federal government already does all the stuff in those ten bullet points. It also does a whole hell of a lot of other stuff.
The First, Most Obvious, and Potentially Most Painful Cuts:
Social Security and Medicare account for about a third of federal spending.
Our Social Security system would need to be trimmed to meet an Efficiency Czar’s targets. Where to start with that? They have a mechanism for increasing the age for full benefits. Otherwise, there may be savings achievable by streamlining the bureaucracy, rooting out fraud, and improving communication.
Our Medicare and Medicaid programs fall under one of my bullet points, but not to their current extent. The thing is, many Americans go without any healthcare at all – because they’re not old enough for Medicare or poor enough for Medicaid, and their employers don’t provide health insurance, and public plans are cost-prohibitive. Evidence supports my theory that if we provide basic preventive healthcare services to all citizens, we’ll avoid many illnesses and accidents that can produce costly long-term disability, unemployability, and early death.
We probably, sorry to say, need to stop giving away very expensive medications and surgeries. Vaccines save lives and prevent disabilities; that’s good for the economy. Hearing aids and eyeglasses prevent accidents, improve education and socialization, facilitate employment, and are therefore also good for the economy. A good set of natural teeth is a prime indicator of long-term health. The nation has a vested interest in those things. But we need to seriously consider whether the nation should be expected to pay for, e.g., cancer treatment, organ transplants, orthopedic surgeries, and elective medications for people past the age of working.
I’m not saying those medications and surgeries shouldn’t be available! Of course they should be! We’ll get to my bill of medical rights later, but right here and now I’m talking about the government use of citizens’ tax dollars.
We also need to examine whether the other gold-plated Federal health insurance programs (congressional, civil service, etc.) should remain in force. One basic plan for all civilian employees should do.
So where else do we cut? You might suppose that I’d jump directly to defense. And yes, I do think we need to cut – defense accounts for 13 percent of the Federal budget. We do not need to be operating under a dozen different declarations of emergency and on a permanent war footing.
We could start by cutting most of the paramilitary agencies, because where they don’t duplicate State law enforcement, they often impede it. So an Efficiency Czar might disband the CIA (we have military intelligence, five branches of it); the FBI (we have State, county, and city law enforcement, which can be required to cooperate); the DEA (legendarily unsuccessful); the ATF and the DHS (both redundant). Do we still need ICE? Yes, unfortunately, because immigration and import control are necessary. Do we still need TSA? Yes, because the freedom of citizens to move safely about the country is good for the economy.
We really can’t stop paying interest on the national debt, and we really should start paying it down. Default and bankruptcy might work for shady real-estate developers; they don’t work for nations. So there’s more to cut.
Check out the links, consider the scope of the problem, and then write to your congressperson and your senators. They need to know what all of us think, especially those of us who want a functional government.