I’d like to see an EO that no funds will be spent, even if allocated, unless the expenditure supports a specific Enumerated Power or federal responsibility. Then I’d like to see that conservative president end all federal expenditures for EPA, Department of Education, National Endowment for the Arts, NPR, PBS, Head Start, FHA, HUD, and many others.
Department of Health and Human Services (other than Medicare), including all Obamacare funding - $757B - make it zero
Department of Agriculture - $154B - make it zero
Department of Labor - $102B - make it zero
Department of Education - $72B - make it zero
Department of Housing and Urban Development - $46B - make it zero
Department of State (other than their $15B in necessary functions) - $45B - make it zero
Department of Energy (other than their nuclear responsibilities) - $25B - make it zero
Environmental Protection Agency - $9B - make it zero
Small Business Administration - $1.4B - make it zero
Corporation for National and Community Service - $1.1B - make it zero
That’s $1.21T, even before we start cutting pork and waste in departments that have a purpose.
I’d add in a hiring bottleneck in those bloated departments that are retained. They can hire - one new full time for every three full time employees who leave (or part-time equivalents), with individual hires beyond that level requiring cabinet-level approval. The only exceptions to the hiring restrictions would be active duty military and other categories that are unambiguously federal responsibilities.
After four years of FedGov shrinkage, we would have quite a breathing space before even the most wasteful big government liberal (whether RINO or Democrat) could get FedGov back up to its current level of bloat. If the President wanted to be more gentle in the cuts, he could put in an absolute hiring freeze in the areas slated for elimination and let them shrink through attrition, with a 3:1 hiring bottleneck in other departments. With the attrition strategy, there wouldn’t even be any identifiable economic disruption in the cuts, just growth because of reduced FedGov drag on the economy.
What to do with the money saved? Balance the budget with half the savings, pay down the national debt with half of the remaining savings, and refund the other half to taxpayers in proportion to the amount paid in (basically a 20% return of all personal income taxes paid in, no caps, no phase-out, no earned income tax credit). The next year, again balance the budget, pay down the debt with half of the surplus, and refund the other half to the people. After four years of a reduced tax burden, “raising” taxes to the nominal legislated level will be quite unpopular, even if it’s a bipartisan RINO/Democrat effort.