Stop all the awards and ceremonies, stop social research grants, government advertising, sell off surplus buildings and land, allow drilling and mining with royalties to government on govt. lands, provide incentive for managers to save $ rather than spend $, repeal laws and regs that increase contracting costs, repeal Davis-Bacon, institute scientific inventory controls, make supplies conservation a factor in compnesation/promotiion.The biggest savings that would improve efficiency would be to allow managers to fire deadwood.
Eliminate EPA, DOE, TSA, FED. Combine the leftist think tank known as the CIA into the FBI. Clean the Pentagon and the rest of the military of civilian workers. There is no job a uniformed military personnel can't perform. Make tests for admission to the armed forces tougher and get females out of combat situations and then kick out all the homosexuals.
Sell the TVA
Gee: That would make sense.
I don’t look for that to happen.
Obama wants to cut the things that hurt the most people in order to make his point and have the Congress cave in to him.
Alaska was called Seward's Folly when I was in school. Now it's an untouchable, Federal, pristine wasteland...and that's the way the Feds like it.
Where to cut? This would be a good place to start...http://www.usa.gov/directory/federal/index.shtml
Entitlements, both unearned (TANF, Food Stamps, Medicaid, ObamaCare) and earned (Medicaid, Social Security).
These are exactly the programs that are killing us, and exactly the programs that are EXEMPT from Sequestration.
Talk about mild reform to Social Security and Medicare around here, though, and expect a full out attack.
Well, it "might" be in order to maximize the negative impact to/on voters, so that they will be more willing to vote to raise taxes. ALL levels of government are guilty of using this tactic.
I would also suggest that until these actions are done, Congress and the Executive branch - who are both failing miserably at their jobs - not be paid one cent of salary. Additionally, if these actions are not taken, that none of them are eligible for re-election, nor to hold public federal office ever again.
There are actually a lot of jobs that military members can't perform. The civilians are there as continuity. Military active duty personnel move around too much. Civilians typically stay at one location their whole careers. At a lot of locations the civilians are the ones that do the training and keep the mission flowing smoothly.
It sounds good to say cut civilians but that is really not such a cost effective idea. A lot of the depot work was always done by civilians. You would have to create new career fields, train and recruit to replace the civilians in these slots. This would take years to accomplish. Not really a savings.
I would cut the portions of the budget that pay for alternative energy. While not a cut, I would put the money spent on alternative transportation back into roads and bridges.
You mentioned “Clean the Pentagon and the rest of the military of civilian workers.” Remember that most of those civilian workers will have to be replaced with active duty military personnel to do the jobs. The growth of civilians in the DoD was meant as a way to let the active duty military focus its manpower on the combat mission, not working daily administrative stuff in the Pentagon and other military bases. Also, it means that contractors are hired to work in the mess halls as KPs instead of detailing soldiers to do that work every day.
Stop sending money to middle eastern barbarian savage countries.
Want places to cut:
Most foreign aid. Especially to countries who hate us.
Eliminate some federal agencies (DHS, EPA, TSA, Education, Anything dealing with public TV, etc.)
We managed just fine without those agencies, before, we can easily do it again.
That having been said, the "cut waste" approach is fraudulent. Not in the sense that the waste should not be cut - of course it should. But we need an immediate reduction (like in the next six months) of $1.2-1.5 trillion, and there is no question that (temporarily) that would be very, very painful. SO painful, in fact, that nobody who depends on votes to keep the best job they ever have had or will have will go for it.
Basically, we screwed.
Not one penny of domestic spending or our military should be cut until ALL foreign aid is suspended. I know this would be small compared to the problem but it MUST be the very first step and not a single person in the state run media mentions it nor on FOX for that matter.
Yes, it would be symbolic, but a strong symbolic gesture to the world, that the USA can no longer be pissed on by every tyrant dictator or socialist/communist redistributionist country and still expected to subsidize those failures.
To our few remaining allies, that the half-black one has not pissed off, sorry, but for now we are broke but you will be the first in line should we recover.
Then completely eliminate the Depts of Education and Energy.
Eliminate all funding for the arts and certainly NPR/PBS.
Then maybe the citizens, who are paying the freight for this runaway economic train, might feel a little better about tightening our own belts.
Close the DHS and you cut 25% off the budget and get rid of the police state at the same time.
I guess that polls better than the actual enumerated powers of the Federal government.
0bama budgeting - we eat fillet mignon and lobster and caviar for 350 days out of the year - but the last 15 days they STARVE!!!!