[Forgiven_Sinner]

“Doesn’t mean squat unless they have an established agenda for specific changes and enough votes in the Senate. Newt gave us the Contract for America. I sat glued to CSPAN watching the House vote in the changes on property rights protections. Then the legislation simply died in the Senate. With Obama in the White House, they will also need enough votes to over-ride a veto. The best they can probably do until 2012 is neuter the progressive’s agenda in Congress, although Obama will push the envelope on implementing his plans through the federal agencies.”

Correct. I thought “Contract for America” was a brilliant idea—and it hasn’t been repeated, much to my surprise and dismay. I propose:

1. Repeal Obamacare.
2. Balance budget by cutting Federal salaries, freezing Federal employment, and Federal spending.
3. Creation of an permanent independent prosecutor to investigate all Congressional and Executive crimes.

[Reily]

“.......
2. Balance budget by cutting Federal salaries, freezing Federal employment, and Federal spending.
..............”

Doing that won’t even come close to balancing the budget.
The problem is entitlement programs, discretionary spending meaning money that defends the country, funds law enforcement, etc. is an ever decreasing part of the budget.
For example social security is 21%, medicare-medicaid-&-SCHIP 21%, interest on the debt 9% there’s 51% of the budget for entitlements! Add another 9% for “safety net programs” and all of this is before Zeros massive new health care entitlement kicks in. All the entitlements programs have to be paid first! Defense & security (Intel) is another 22%, salaries (basically running the government) is around 18%
Yes there are too many federal employees but they are not really the problem.

[kitchen]

I'd like to see a sunset law applied to every federal register regulation published by an executive branch department. If, after 2 or 3 years, it does not pass congress, it's gone. The clock starts on previously published regulations as soon as the sunset law passes.