Federal Spending Reduction Ideas for Pres. Trump

Cato ^ | November 10, 2016 3:18PM | Chris Edwards

[expat_panama]

President-elect Donald Trump said on the campaign trail that he will balance the federal budget and cut wasteful spending. Here are some of Trump’s views on budget reforms:

• “We are going to ask every department head in government to provide a list of wasteful spending projects that we can eliminate in my first 100 days.” Source.
• “We can also stop funding programs that are not authorized in law. Congress spent $320 billion last year on 256 expired laws … Removing just 5 percent of that will reduce spending by almost $200 billion over a ten-year period.” Source.
• “I may cut Department of Education. I believe Common Core is a very bad thing,” Trump said. “I believe that we should be — you know, educating our children from Iowa, from New Hampshire, from South Carolina, from California, from New York. I think that it should be local education.” Source.
• “If we save just one penny of each federal dollar spent on non-defense, and non-entitlement programs, we can save almost $1 trillion over the next decade.” Source.
• “We’re going local. Have to go local. Environmental protection—we waste all of this money. We’re going to bring that back to the states … We are going to cut many of the agencies, we will balance our budget, and we will be dynamic again.” Source.
• “Waste, fraud and abuse all over the place. Waste, fraud and abuse. You look at what’s happening with Social Security, you look—look at what’s happening with every agency—waste, fraud and abuse. We will cut so much, your head will spin.” Source.

I hope my head does spin from cuts, although most of Trump’s proposals are vague and quite timid. Still, I’m hoping that the more the incoming president finds out about the federal budget, the more he will appreciate the need for major terminations.

So let me suggest some wasteful spending that the new administration should tackle, and the annual savings from terminating each:

• K-12 school subsidies, which generate bureaucracy and stifle innovation ($25 billion).
• Farm subsidies, which enrich wealthy landowners and harm the environment ($25 billion).
• Rural corporate welfare, which is handed out by the Department of Agriculture ($6 billion).
• Energy subsidies, which have been one boondoggle after another ($5 billion).
• TSA airport screening, which Trump has said is “a total disaster” ($5 billion).
• The war on drugs, which wastes police resources and generates violence ($15 billion).
• Excess pay for federal workers, especially gold-plated retirement benefits ($33 billion with a 10 percent cut).
• Housing subsidies, which distort markets and damage cities ($37 billion).
• Community development aid, which is corporate welfare used for buying votes ($11 billion).
• Urban transit and passenger rail funding, which are properly local and private activities ($12 billion).
• Obamacare exchange subsidies and Medicaid expansion, which should be repealed along with the overall law ($225 billion a year by 2026).

President Trump will face major budget pressures in coming years as deficits and entitlement spending soar. Today’s $600 billion deficits are headed toward $1 trillion, and deficits will be even higher if a recession comes along.

Federal spending cuts would help avert a fiscal crisis and boost growth by reducing economic distortions. The incoming Trump team should start with some of the cuts here, and there are plenty more proposals at DownsizingGovernment.org.

[expat_panama]

Maybe 2017 would be a great time for the line item veto...

[GailA]

VA spent $20M on art as ailing veterans languished, report finds
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/07/27/va-spent-20m-on-art-as-ailing-veterans-languished-report-finds.html

Veterans Affairs improperly spent $6 billion annually, senior official says
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/va-improperly-spent-6-billion-on-care-for-veterans-senior-agency-leader-says/2015/05/13/ab8f131c-f5be-11e4-b2f3-af5479e6bbdd_story.html

va-crisis-line-director-resigns-text-messages-go-unanswered
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/veterans/2016/06/29/va-crisis-line-director-resigns-text-messages-go-unanswered/86519866/

The Big Problem With Senate’s Proposal To Cut Housing Allowance
http://taskandpurpose.com/the-big-problem-with-senates-proposal-to-cut-housing-allowance/\

The Navy called USS Zumwalt a warship Batman would drive. But at $800,000 per round, its ammo is too pricey to fire. TOTALLY loaded ammo is $2Billion
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/08/the-navy-called-uss-zumwalt-a-warship-batman-would-drive-but-at-800000-per-round-its-ammo-is-too-pricey-to-fire/

VA Spends Billions Annually Without Proper Oversight
http://freebeacon.com/uncategorized/va-spends-billions-without-proper-oversight/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=73228d4ba1-WFB_Morning_Beacon_09_19_169_18_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-73228d4ba1-46016061

Doctors Earn $3.5 Billion in Kickbacks from Pharmaceutical Companies
http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/doctors-earn-3-5-billion-in-kickbacks-from-pharmaceutical-companies/

Dead People Received $1.5 Million in Benefits Through Medicare Program
Medicare paid 1,047 claims for services performed after the individual’s date of death
http://freebeacon.com/issues/dead-people-received-1-5-million-benefits-medi care-program/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=11083ed185-WFB_Morning_B eacon_10_12_1610_11_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-11083ed185- 46016061

Medicare paid $9.3 million in benefits to illegals
Over 14,500 claims to nearly 500 people unlawfully in U.S.
http://www.wnd.com/2016/10/medicare-paid-9-3-million-in-benefits-to-illegal s/

Medicare Fraud Costs Taxpayers More Than $60 Billion Each Year
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/medicare-fraud-costs-taxpayers-60-billion-year/story?id=10126555

Medicare And Medicaid Fraud Is Costing Taxpayers
http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2012/05/31/medicare-and-medicaid-fraud-is-costing-taxpayers-billions/#534cc2b83e29

The $272 billion swindle The Economist
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21603078-why-thieves-love-americas-health-care-system-272-billion-swindle

23 Stunning Medicaid Fraud Statistics | HRFnd
http://healthresearchfunding.org/stunning-medicaid-fraud-statistics/

$60 BILLION MEDICARE FRAUD AND WASTE http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/medicare-funds-totaling-60-billion-improperly-paid-report/story?id=3260433

DOD MANDATED Retired Military over 65 on Tricare Life to use either Base Pharmacy or Express Scripts Mail order:
ES FRAUD LAWSUITS! how did they get this huge profitable contract? You meds are just shoved in your mail box with NO ID SIGN FOR, regardless of the expense of the drugs.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB109163322648482792

[DoodleDawg]

Maybe 2017 would be a great time for the line item veto...

Tried under Clinton and ruled unconstitutional.

[GailA]

I’d add in all PRE K schools, they are noting but Fed/State $$ paid babysitters.

[Pollster1]

I’d add in all PRE K schools, they are noting but Fed/State $$ paid babysitters.

I'd agree at the federal level. If a state wants to do that, they are entitled to do so. The federal government isn't because it's not an enumerated power.

[GailA]

Head Start is just 1

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-bank/2015/06/26/setting-the-record-straight-on-state-pre-k-programs

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2014/02/28/elected-officials-embrace-preschool-but-funding-is-the-catch

The feds have fingers in more ed pies than is realized. Same goes for road construction, you follow their regs or your state gets no Fed $ for road/bridge construction. Even if it is money that comes from Fed Income Tax from your State,which is why the booze limit went to .08, and that also includes those dam$ WILD FLOWERS, Medians that impede traffic flow and need a Horticulturist to maintain them.

Those Wild Flowers cost a cool half mil in my state alone each year. And they are only along a 100 milw section of interstate near the capitol. Medians are in every small town or city now.

[I am Richard Brandon]

And in other news, Mount Everest will be moved to make way for low cost housing for Maldive Islanders whose islands have been submerged due to climate caused rising sea levels. /sarc

[WayneS]

What line item veto?

[gloryblaze]

Excellent post! Big medicine in my area is deeply entrenched; it is wide and it is deep. And everyone involved loves it, users and providers both. It is the very best, the top of the line. Any reining in would be stymied from minute one. It is literally sacrosanct.

[cweese]

Thanks for the info. I have not seen that graphic before.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“We will cut so much, your head will spin.”

While ours may spin, I’m looking FORWARD to the Socialist heads that actually EXPLODE! President-Elect (LOVE THAT!) Trump needs to talk to us every WEEK about what he is cutting. He needs to lay it out that our Nation has a BUDGET just like each and every American Citizen.

However, brace yourselves for a LOT of...

Trump HATES Children!
Trump HATES Old People!
Trump HATE Sick People!
Trump HATES Blacks!
Trump HATES YOU!

...24/7/365 for the next four/eight years. :)

[expat_panama]

...line item veto?

It's the idea that Prez should be able to veto part of a bill and sign the rest. 

What we had all this time is that when congress sent a bill for signature w/ important stuff like defense and the dems tagged on cr@p for abortion at the end of it, so if there was a veto the dems cud say the prez hates defense.  Theoretically there's nothing to prevent the prez from just vetoing the bad part and signing the good --but for 200 years it's never happened because neither side wants the other to get it next term when the 'outs' become 'ins'. 

Fast forward to 2016 and O has just spent 8 years doing anything he wants --imho T has nothing to lose by going for the line item starting 2017 because we now know the dems will do it anyway if they feel like it anyway.

No more pork snuck in w/ something needed.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

The Cato Institute is a Libertarian think tank, which explains their view on President-Elect (LOVE THAT!) Trump.

[expat_panama]

"--brace yourselves for a LOT of...  Trump HATES--"

The beauty is that it's what they're already saying, so this time no one will ever notice any difference ;)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

The Cato Institute is Libertarian. They don’t like Hillary!, either.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

True, Dat! :)

[expat_panama]

line item veto...

Tried under Clinton and ruled unconstitutional.

Dang --nobody tells me anything around here!  Tx fer the headsup, here's the story:

Court Strikes Down Line-Item Veto

...Within a couple of hours of the ruling, the law's backers announced they will try again to find a constitutional way to expand the president's powers to cut pork-barrel expenditures.

In a 6 to 3 decision, the court held that the line-item veto law violates a constitutional requirement that legislation be passed by both houses of Congress and presented in its entirety to the president for signature or veto...

...Clinton, who had line-item veto powers as governor of Arkansas, signed the bill with relish and moved quickly, although cautiously, to begin trimming spending bills...

...Congress could alter the president's role in determining the final text of a law only by constitutional amendment...

...they will introduce legislation immediately to get around the Supreme Court's objections by breaking each appropriations bill into individual items, passing each one separately

...not a dime's worth of difference between Congress authorizing the president to cancel a spending item, and Congress's authorizing money to be spent on a particular item at the president's discretion. And the latter has been done since the founding of the nation," said Scalia.

[WayneS]

That's what I meant by "What line item veto?"

And I am okay with the president not having line-tem veto power, because... ...democrats.

However, I do think we need a constitutional amendment which sets the maximum length of each new federal law to the total number of words included in the original text of the Constitution (pre-Bill of Rights, although I'm flexible on this point").

;-)

[Vince Ferrer]

It would save $8.2 billion this past year. That's a rounding error for the budget as a whole.

Think of it this way. How many employees of the EPA, or contractors to it, or grant recipients, are conservatives? Practically zero. It is only 8 billion, but it is 8 billion that hurts them more than us.

We haven't won yet, we are just getting in a position to win. We win when they have no more money, and no more people to fight back.

[Vince Ferrer]

NPR, PBS should be first rounders.