Today we are once again putting forward a suggested platform for the GOP to use in November's election. America deserves to see how Republicans would use a Senate majority should they win the election. Our subject today is eliminating government waste.
There is no person in America who could possibly consider the federal government to be generally efficient and effective. There are simply too many examples of fraud and waste infecting the government. President Obama actually said at one point that he would go through the federal budget line by line to get rid of wasteful spending. Of course, he never did anything remotely like that. When the GOP took control of the House in 2011, the new majority came forward each week with some $2 billion of spending cuts which were intended to get rid of the worst abuses. Then, after the big fight in the summer of 2011 over the budget, the GOP dropped that idea.
The Republicans ought to pledge once again to eliminate waste. This pledge should come with the following specifics:
1. The goal ought to be to cut spending by each federal agency by 2%.
2. Programs that simply do not work ought to be eliminated. That can be done by cutting off all spending for them.
3. Inefficient programs ought to be reorganized. There are limits to what can be done, but a Republican congressional majority ought to be able to put some order into the chaos. For example, there is no need to have 105 separate federal job training programs. It would do fine to consolidate these existing programs into 4 or 5 and to get rid of the extra bureaucratic management while keeping the same level of training. Such a move would save much more than the 2% goal and would not reduce job training one bit.
4. Misguided programs ought to be redirected. Using job training programs once again as the example, a federal program to train workers to do jobs that are no longer needed is not a good idea. Existing programs ought to be redirected to prepare workers for jobs that are in demand instead. Such a move would not increase or reduce spending, but it would make the program much more effective.
The bottom line is that the Republicans ought to promise to revisit existing programs rather than just focusing on new ones. Many of the older programs have outlived their usefulness or need to be modified to improve their effect.
This type of change is one that the GOP ought to be able to accomplish even if president Obama opposes the modifications. After all, Congress can just pass a budget that requires a redirection of spending. If Obama wants to veto the spending bills, he can do so, but it will be hard to win the PR battle on that one.
There is no person in America who could possibly consider the federal government to be generally efficient and effective. There are simply too many examples of fraud and waste infecting the government. President Obama actually said at one point that he would go through the federal budget line by line to get rid of wasteful spending. Of course, he never did anything remotely like that. When the GOP took control of the House in 2011, the new majority came forward each week with some $2 billion of spending cuts which were intended to get rid of the worst abuses. Then, after the big fight in the summer of 2011 over the budget, the GOP dropped that idea.
The Republicans ought to pledge once again to eliminate waste. This pledge should come with the following specifics:
1. The goal ought to be to cut spending by each federal agency by 2%.
2. Programs that simply do not work ought to be eliminated. That can be done by cutting off all spending for them.
3. Inefficient programs ought to be reorganized. There are limits to what can be done, but a Republican congressional majority ought to be able to put some order into the chaos. For example, there is no need to have 105 separate federal job training programs. It would do fine to consolidate these existing programs into 4 or 5 and to get rid of the extra bureaucratic management while keeping the same level of training. Such a move would save much more than the 2% goal and would not reduce job training one bit.
4. Misguided programs ought to be redirected. Using job training programs once again as the example, a federal program to train workers to do jobs that are no longer needed is not a good idea. Existing programs ought to be redirected to prepare workers for jobs that are in demand instead. Such a move would not increase or reduce spending, but it would make the program much more effective.
The bottom line is that the Republicans ought to promise to revisit existing programs rather than just focusing on new ones. Many of the older programs have outlived their usefulness or need to be modified to improve their effect.
This type of change is one that the GOP ought to be able to accomplish even if president Obama opposes the modifications. After all, Congress can just pass a budget that requires a redirection of spending. If Obama wants to veto the spending bills, he can do so, but it will be hard to win the PR battle on that one.
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