According to the Cato Institute, who stated the words in the title of this post? Congressman Ron Paul, that crazy libertarian type out of Texas? Somebody out of that wacky tea party crowd? One of those nut case Fox News hosts? No, those words were stated by President-elect Barack Obama in 2008. What a great idea, take a ground up approach to examine and analyze every expenditure of taxpayer money that the political class has responsibility for. Unfortunately, never has a politician’s promise never fallen so short. Consider what has happened since the President took office:
We could go on and on but this is just another busted Obama campaign promise that we can put next to the non-closing of Guantanamo, getting all of our troops out of Iraq, moving gay rights issues forward, curbing earmarks, etc. , etc. , etc.
The good news is that many people are trying to fill the President’s promise of eliminating waste even if he has done nothing to that effect. The Cato Institute has been conducting a great analysis and doing exactly what Obama said he would do but has not done: going through the federal budget line by line to see what can be downsized or eliminated and the wealth/taxes that supported the waste can be returned to the country’s taxpayers.
A recent national newspaper ad from Cato summarized their findings so far. They have already identified about $580 billion a year that the government could save without sacrificing the quality of life in America. This would be the equivalent of giving every American household a check for just over $5,000 a year. Imagine how much of a stimulus to the economy it would be if 115 million households had an extra $5,000 a year, year after year, to spend on products and services they wanted. Not only would every household be a little wealthier, they would also be a little freer, freer to spend their hard earned dollars the way they wanted. These savings were found in all areas of the Federal budget including transportation, education, defense, and others. Below are some other suggested steps for Federal budget integrity, austerity, and efficiency:
There are two other steps that need to be examined. Many of the proposed budget reduction steps will be difficult to implement since they would dry up the funds that the political class depends on to finance their re-election campaigns. Political donations from teachers’ unions, the military-industrial complex, the large farming companies, etc. will fight, lobby, and donate to keep their sweetheart deals in place at the expense of the American taxpayer. That is why two additional steps from also need to be implemented:
By taking re-election campaign donations out of the equation, it will be much simpler to reduce the fat and waste that supports those entities that rely on American taxpayer wealth without producing tangible and necessary benefits.
