Another post about government! In this case, government spending - and some radical suggestions for cutting it.
Five categories account for 76% of federal spending: Social Security, Medicare, Defense, Health, and interest on the national debt.
Everything else the federal government does is squeezed into the remaining 24%, and considering we spent 38% more than we collected in 2023, all of it was deficit spending.
It may seem pointless to discuss reforming all the agencies in the bottom quartile so our spending is more efficient, but it isn’t.
This is not play money. It’s either tax dollars collected from citizens, or it’s debt dollars. Either way, we’re on the hook for it, and we need to account for it. All of this information is readily available online, and anyone who’s interested in pushing their reform-minded legislators should certainly be ready to throw some links at them. But we should also be thinking about what government, in general, should do.
And even more about what the federal government, in particular, should do.
If you visit this page (a government data page, not something concocted by a partisan group), you’ll get the allocated budget for the federal government’s many agencies. They are helpfully ranked by dollar amounts.
Looking at it simplistically, we could say that federal spending in 2023 was $6.2 trillion, but we only collected $4.5 trillion, so the federal budget – total – shouldn’t be more than $4.5 trillion.
Then we could say that since 13% of spending was interest on the national debt, and 13% of $6.2 trillion is $806 billion, the federal spending budget can’t be more than $3.694 trillion.
Where does that leave us? With the need to cut three trillion dollars’ worth of spending from the federal budget. It’s no wonder every time Congress claims they’re going to balance the budget, they quietly slink away to impeach somebody instead.
It can’t be done without reforming Social Security, Medicare, and the military. You can be sure I will talk about that soon.
But today, it’s about everything else. Hard decisions must be made. Some of them shouldn’t be hard: the government owns some real estate that is not in use and hasn’t been for decades. Various Congresses have failed to agree on selling that stuff off, even after the Government Accountability Office gave them detailed recommendations to do so.
I said this last time: Federal-level laws and regulations: yes. Federal-level administration of every damn thing: no.
What can be cut? More than you’d think, if we’re willing to make difficult decisions. Some programs are duplicated at state level. Some are legacy, and some are pork. Many of these departments and agencies contain several smaller bureaus or offices. Where only national administration will get a job done, pull that out for further auditing (and editing).
Let me repeat, it’s not that I don’t think these were ever legitimate government interests, but I don’t think they are all legitimate federal government interests any longer. And the truth is, we can’t afford all of this, so here’s my radical list of things to cut:
Department of Education. Savings: $241.6 billion
Department of Housing & Urban Development. Savings: $283.4 billion
Department of Transportation. Savings: $293.2 billion
Department of Agriculture. Savings: $437.2 billion
Department of Homeland Security. Savings: $176 billion
Department of Energy. Savings: $153.4 billion
Department of Labor. Savings: $71.2 billion
Agency for International Development. Savings: $44.2 billion
Small Business Administration. Savings: $40.1 billion
International Development Finance Corporation. Savings: $8.6 billion
Farm Credit System Insurance Corporation. Savings: $7.5 billion
Millenium Challenge Corporation. Savings: $4 billion
Corporation for National and Community Service. Savings: $2.6 billion
Agency for Global Media. Savings: $1 billion
Total in billions: $1764, or $1 trillion 764 billion (feel free to check my math)
Plus:
Appalachian Regional Commission. Savings: $815 million
Presidio Trust. Savings: $726 million
Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council. Savings: $541 million
Export-Import Bank. Savings: $383 million
American Battle Monuments Commission. Savings: $208 million
Denali Commission. Savings: $169 million
African Development Foundation. Savings: $69 million
Inter-American Foundation. Savings: $60 million
Surface Transportation Board. Savings: $50 million
Barry Goldwater Scholarship Foundation. Savings: $43 million
James Madison Fellowship Foundation. Savings: $38 million
Harry Truman Scholarship Foundation. Savings: $29 million
Udall Foundation. Savings: $28 million
Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Savings: $18 million
Japan-United States Friendship Commission. Savings: $2 million
Total in millions: $3179, or $3 billion 179 million (feel free to check my math)
Total all above: 1 trillion 767 billion 179 million or $1,767,179,000,000
As you can see, we are well short of the 3 trillion dollars that needs to come out to balance the budget, and that’s with a really heavy hand on the knife. We need another 1.3 trillion. And it will have to come out of the Top Four.
Remember, everything that is cut from the “fund it every year until eternity” budget can still receive funding by special appropriations, when needed. Preferably when we’re not $33 trillion in debt.
Also remember, I’m proposing that the essential functions of all of the above agencies be assumed by the states, not abandoned altogether. Nonessential functions: yeah, abandon those.