Recommendations to Super Committee: More Than $1.5 Trillion in Savings

ATR ^ | 2011-09-28 | Ryan Ellis and Mattie Duppler Corrao

[92nina]

The Joint Committee has been tasked with finding $1.5 trillion in savings over the next ten years. With government spending levels at 25 percent of GDP, this is not a difficult assignment.

First, the Committee should enact a hard, nominal discretionary spending freeze at the FY2012 levels. Savings: $971 billion.

Secondly, the following reforms offer multiple ways for the committee to find its way to $1.5 trillion in savings (calculated over ten years, unless otherwise noted):

• Revive federalism – Give states control over their Medicaid programs, remaining federal welfare programs and transportation spending.

Devolving transportation to the states:

Savings: $540 billion

Block-granting Medicaid:

Savings: $750 billion

• Decrease the regulatory burden – Regulatory budgets have grown by 72.5 percent over the past decade, which is much faster than the reported costs of regulations in the same time period. Simply freezing spending on regulatory agencies’ at its ten-year average would create real savings while stemming aggressive regulatory overreach.

Savings: $298 billion

• Eliminate costly federal labor mandates – federal labor laws inflate the cost of construction projects with arbitrary wage mandates and uncompetitive union requirements.

Repealing the Davis-Bacon Act:

Savings: $108 billion

Repealing Project Labor Agreements:

Savings: $24 billion

• Spending Reform

Stop appropriating for unauthorized programs

Power-hungry appropriators annually fund programs and agencies whose authorizations have expired.

First year savings: $290 billion (2010 CBO estimate, does not include “indefinite” appropriations)

Prohibit authorizing and appropriating in the same bill

Obamacare is a prime with examples...

[92nina]

The Joint Committee has a multitude of ways to find $1.5 trillion in savings. ATR has offered a few commonsense options here.

Take this article and others I found to the fight to the Libs on their own turf; put the Left on the defensive at Digg and at Reddit and in Stumbleupon and Delicious

[ataDude]

A freeze at 2012 levels? How about at 2008 levels?

[Blue Ink]

That’s nice.

Now, how do we sue Congress in Federal court for illegally outsourcing their jobs and one man/one vote duties?

[SERKIT]

The Joint Committee has a multitude of ways to find $1.5 trillion in savings. ATR has offered a few commonsense options here.

Central Planning is a disaster in the making. If Congress did its job (which is MY flawed thinking) each committee of jurisdiction couls be told to do a few things:

1) STOP baseline budgeting
2) Cut 5% each year for "X" years.
3) Reduce burdensome regulations, and thus reduce the costs for compliance.

If congress did its job, there would be no need for the super-duper-committee.

[raygunfan]

Ten years????? how come spending is immediate, but cuts have to take ten years???????...

feces alert

[achilles2000]

It is easy to get rid of $1.5 trillion over ten years. Just eliminating the DOEs (Education and Energy) would roughly do it.