President Bush is encouraging Congress to "push the envelope" on spending cuts. Many, many billions (that's an official estimate) must be trimmed from the budget - given the Iraq War, relief and rebuilding stemming from the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and a whole lot of greenbacks being tossed about for all kinds of dubious things. Rolling back the Bush tax cuts that have benefitted individuals and households is not on the table for recission and justifiably so.

Knowing that the President, Congress and elite members of the punditocracy regularly turn to Rosenblog for a crucial Outside-The-Beltway perspective from a famous freelance journalist, blogger, and guitar-playing father of two from Seattle, I offer the following suggestions on reducing federal spending.

First off, Jorge - Luv Ya, big guy. Really, and truly. The way you clear brush down in Crawford is just plain impressive. But you and Congress don't know the first damn thing about clearing the brush in D.C., now do ya? Never mind about envelope-pushing.

Good news tho, amigos! Famous bloggers like Rosenblog are a real resource.

So...to start with: c-o-r-p-or-a-t-e w-e-l-f-a-r-e. End it. I'm just a huge, huge fan of free enterprise and small government, like a lot of Republicans. But tax breaks written into the tax code are evil, and generally not warranted to boot. A special commission of performance auditors with distemper should examine each and every corporate tax break granted by Congress. They should give beneficiaries, experts and the lay public a deadline to produce top-level documentation of proven benefits to the economy. Any corporate tax breaks which cannot be shown to produce a net benefit to the economy will have to be eliminated, under the Corporate Tax Break Performance Audit Act of 2005, which Congress should pass by Christmas recess.

Now, a few other easy steps to curtail federal spending. Mind you, these are just some Phase One ideas; we all need to put on our thinking caps and figure out some more good stuff. But this much is clear: We sure don't wanna leave it to Congress and turf-obsessed committee staff dweebs. No way, no how!

More brilliant ideas......

Pass a special act making mandatory all cost-saving measures recommended in reports by The General Accounting Office, now known as the Government Accountability Office. Or abolish the agency altogether. But it's got to be one or the other, because nobody pays them no never mind, except a few members of Congress, and committee staffers looking to score P.R. points with the results of one or another GAO study. We need to give GAO a nine-iron to whack some sense into a lot of heads, ah, figuratively speaking.

U.S. Energy Department. Contract out - all the way - for hazardous materials clean-up; and for disposal and then, security of remaining nuclear-weapons-grade materials. After which, shut the whole stinkin' agency down. They can't do anything right anymore, anyhow. Besides, do we really need the government to give us energy? C'mon. That's one-a them-there free market thangs, now, ain't it?

Bury Foggy Bottom Six Leagues Under. What, really does the State Department do? Except muck up things for the Department of Defense? Useless bureaucrats at State, nearly all. Excise the entire department. Who'd really notice, or care, besides WaPo and NYT reporters, a few equally vestigial columnists, and card-carrying DNC members who comprise their sole readership? Huge savings in salary and bennies, not to mention real estate sales of former State building stock.

Another great idea: Offload as much marketable, non-utilized federal property as possible, across the entire nation. Be merciless.

And.....abolish the Federal Drug Administration. Drug testing and trials, feh! Let the market decide, and juries. I mean, talk about checks and balances!

Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, U.S. Civil Rights Commission.....both wholly obsolete. Abolish 'em. Power of the individual, and all that.

Nuke the National Endowment For The Arts. People can apprehend art on their own. Besides which: mission accomplished. Culture permeates our society.

Furthermore: this bi-cameral legislature stuff is getting old. Really old. The House of Representatives is an unruly, ill-mannered mob. With re-election every two years, all they do is pander to campaign contributors anyway. Even if their re-election cycle were less frequent, they nonetheless tend to be intellectually-challenged, in the most basic sense. And vastly too numerous. They'll always subtract, rather than add, to the national debate. Let's move with alacrity to a unicameral legislature; if it takes a constitutional amendment, well, so be it. And we'll call that sole chamber.....mmmmm....the U.S. Senate. Come to think of it, I'd be just perfectly peachy happy with Wyoming and Kansas having as many representatives as New York or California. Kind of a poetical justice there, actually.

NASA: enough useless romance already! S-u-n-s-e-t. Ballgame over.

DOD: Cut the Pentagon workforce by one-third within six months. And...within two years, finalize a plan for a re-purposed defense hardware and technology arsenal, one that's twice as effective and half as expensive as what we've got now. (George, buddy, be thinking failsafe "legacy" here, OK? Maybe even "visionary." Or, alternatively, enjoy all those speeches to defense firms at 50K a pop after your second term ends. Your call, Tex).

A final word of advice to all my power-broker friends.

Dimmocrats: it is not government's job to provide a social safety net. It is the federal government's job to protect our borders (ahem!) and our national security; and to fight vigilantly and intelligently against terrorist organizations who wish to destroy our infrastructure, populace and way of life. It is the federal government's job to help incentivize excellence in public education (no turning back from NCLB now, c'mon!); to protect the environment without becoming pawns of all the friends of Robert Kennedy Jr.; and to help fund transit, roads, highways, airports (especially new ones), dams, and reservoirs. Oh, disaster relief, that's fair enough, too, I suppose. I probably left out a few other things, but you get the idea. Health care? My tight, sweet a--. For veterans, yes (govt. health care, not my posterior). For the rest? It should be their own affair. It's a cost of living, like food and gasoline. Repeat after me: core competencies. Mission creep has gotten WAY out of hand.

Republicans: you say you're for fiscal restraint. Show me.

Everyone: Glad I could be of service. I'm only gettin' started, mind you.

More here - scroll down to "A Flight Of Fantasy." You'll quickly see that early on in my illustrious and internationally-celebrated blogging career, I was already on the case, federal deficit-wise.

TECHNORATI TAGS: SPENDING CUTS, BUSH, CONGRESS

TO COMMENT: The regular "comment" feature is not in operation. E-mail comments to address under "Contact" on main page masthead, and I'll add them, here.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at October 27, 2005 05:22 PM