When Did the Goverment Start Cutting the Budget for the Arts

How to Cutting $343 Billion from the Federal Upkeep

How to Cutting $343 Billion from the Federal Upkeep

October 28, 2010 xiv min read Download Report

Brian Riedl

Senior Fellow, Manhattan Constitute

Abstract : Federal spending is on an unsustainable path that risks disaster for America. Runaway spending has increased annual federal upkeep deficits to unprecedented levels, adding $2.7 trillion to the national debt in the past two years lonely. Each year's huge federal deficit increases the mountain of national debt borrowed from future generations of Americans. Congress needs to cut federal spending sharply and apace. This paper sets along $343 billion in available spending cuts.

Over the past ii years, Congress has added $2.7 trillion to the national debt, including a record $1.iv trillion deficit for financial year (FY) 2009 and a $1.3 trillion deficit for FY 2010.[1] If Congress does nothing and simply continues existing taxing and spending policies, federal deficits will grow, reaching a projected $2 trillion deficit in just x years—and even that assumes a return to peace and prosperity.[ii]

America cannot live with such deficits interminably. Deficits mortgage the livelihoods of future generations of Americans and ultimately put U.S. economic growth, stability, and reliability at risk.

Soaring spending drives these dangerous deficits. By 2020, federal spending is prepare to soar to 26 percent of the gross domestic production (GDP), after having averaged twenty percentage after World War Ii. Revenues will likely return to their postal service–World War Two average of 18 percent of GDP by 2020, even if the 2001 and 2003 taxation cuts are fabricated permanent.[3] Thus, given current spending and taxing policies, spending is clearly the variable that drives up the deficits.[4] To reduce deficits, Congress must cut spending.

The costs of federal entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—and interest on the national debt will drive future deficits, and Congress must promptly and carefully decide how best to reduce those costs. Notwithstanding, entitlement reforms volition take time, and spending cuts cannot wait. Congress needs to beginning cutting spending at present.

Table one sets along $343 billion in available spending cuts for the new Congress to consider when it takes up the federal budget for FY 2012. Many of the cuts fall into 6 areas:

• Empowering state and local governments. Congress should focus the federal government on performing a few duties well and allow the land and local governments, which are closer to the people, to creatively address local needs in areas such equally transportation, justice, job training, and economical development.
• Consolidating duplicative programs. By Congresses have repeatedly piled duplicative programs on top of preexisting programs, increasing administrative costs and creating a bureaucratic maze that confuses people seeking aid.
• Privatization. Many current government functions could be performed more efficiently past the private sector.
• Targeting programs more than precisely. Corporate welfare programs benefit those who do not need assistance in the American costless enterprise system. Other programs often fail to enforce their own eligibility requirements.
• Eliminating outdated and ineffective programs. Congress ofttimes allows the federal government to run the same programs for decades, despite many studies showing their ineffectiveness.
• Eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. Taxpayers will never trust the federal government to reform major entitlements if they believe that the savings will go toward "bridges to nowhere," vacant government buildings, and Grateful Expressionless athenaeum.[5]

Table 1: Spending Cuts for FY 2012

(in millions of dollars)

Agriculture
$15,000	Replace subcontract subsidies with Farmer Savings Accounts and improved crop insurance.
$two,033	Eliminate the Foreign Agriculture Service.
$i,500	Merge all four agriculture outreach and research agencies and cutting their budget in half.
$one,000	Fund the Food Safety and Inspection Service with user fees.
Commerce
$500	Eliminate business subsidies from the National Institute of Standards and Engineering science.
Community Development
$6,000	Eliminate the Community Development Block Grant programme.
$598	Eliminate the Rural Utilities Service.
$523	Eliminate the Economic Development Administration.
$480	Eliminate NeighborWorks America (formerly the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation).
$200	Consolidate the Rural Housing and Development Programs and convert them into block grants.
$73	Eliminate the Appalachian Regional Commission.
$48	Eliminate the Denali Commission.
$31	Eliminate the Minority Development Concern Agency.
$eight	Eliminate the Delta Regional authority.
Education
$8,000	Return Pell Grants to their 2009 funding level of $24 billion, which is however double the 2007 level.
$2,000	Trim Head Offset past $2 billion and convert information technology into vouchers.
$ii,000	Calibration dorsum the Education Department hierarchy.
$one,500	Eliminate dozens of small and duplicative pedagogy grants.
$298	Eliminate state grants for Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities.
Energy and the Environment
$6,500	Reduce free energy subsidies for commercialization and some research activities.
$600	Block grant and devolve Environmental Protection Agency grant programs.
$200	Restructure the Power Marketing Administrations to charge market-based rates.
$63	Eliminate the Science to Achieve Results Program.
Government Reform
$44,000	Halve federal program payment errors by 2012, particularly past reducing Medicare errors and earned income tax credit errors. Tighten oversight by spending $five billion on new resources, such equally updated computer systems, then recover $49 billion in payment errors.
$20,000	Rescind unobligated balances after 36 months.
$12,500	Halve the $25 billion spent to maintain vacant federal properties.
$10,000	Cutting the federal employee travel budget to $iv billion (half of FY 2000 spending).
$3,000	Freeze federal pay until information technology can be reformed.
$1,000	Suspend conquering of federal office space.
$600	Trim the federal vehicle armada by 20 per centum (a reduction of 100,000 vehicles).
$300	Cut the Firm and Senate budgets back to the 2008 level of $2.2 billion.
$215	Eliminate the Presidential Election Entrada Fund.
$100	Tighten controls on federal employee credit cards and cutting downwardly on delinquencies.
$lxx	Require federal employees to fly autobus on domestic flights.
Health Care
$half-dozen,200	Reform Medigap.
$5,000	Repeal Obamacare (larger savings in later on years).
$3,700	Crave Medicare abode wellness co-payments.
$673	Eliminate the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant.
$414	Eliminate Health Professions grants.
$327	Eliminate Title X Family Planning.
$150	Eliminate the National Wellness Service Corps.
$98	Repeal Rural Wellness Outreach and Flexibility grants.
Homeland Security
$two,700	Eliminate most homeland security grants to states and permit states to finance their ain programs.
Income Security
$500	Ameliorate enforce eligibility requirements for food stamps.
Interior
$ane,500	Open the coastal patently of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to leasing. (The savings are leasing revenues, which are classified as negative spending in the federal budget.)
$200	Suspend federal country purchases.
International
$2,636	Eliminate the Development Assistance Program.
$625	Eliminate the State Department's education and cultural commutation programs.
$321	Eliminate the International Trade Assistants's trade promotion activities or charge the beneficiaries.
$183	Eliminate the Democracy Fund.
$68	Eliminate the International Trade Commission and transfer oversight of intellectual property rights to the Treasury Section.
$56	Eliminate the Trade and Development Agency.
$29	Eliminate the Overseas Individual Investment Corporation.
$19	Eliminate the E–Due west Middle.
$17	Eliminate the United States Institute of Peace.
$2	Eliminate the Japan–U.s. Friendship Committee.
Justice
$7,334	Eliminate all Justice Section grants except those from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Plant of Justice, thereby empowering states to finance their own justice programs.
$398	Eliminate the Legal Services Corporation.
$32	Eliminate the Justice Department's Community Relations Service.
$30	Eliminate the duplicative Office of National Drug Control Policy.
$26	Reduce funding for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Segmentation by 20 percentage because of its policy confronting race-neutral enforcement of the law.
$4	Eliminate the Country Justice Institute.
Labor
$four,300	Eliminate failed federal job training programs.
$ii,000	Eliminate the ineffective Job Corps.
$576	Eliminate the Senior Community Service Employment Program.
National Science Foundation
$1,700	Reduce National Science Foundation funding to 2008 levels.
$86	Eliminate National Science Foundation spending on elementary and secondary education.
Transportation
$45,000	Devolve the federal highway program and most transit spending to the states.
$1,900	Privatize Amtrak.
$1,009	Eliminate grants to large and medium-sized hub airports.
$554	Eliminate the Maritime Administration.
$125	Eliminate the Essential Air Service Program.
Treasury
$26,646	Eliminate the additional child refundable credit.
$103	Eliminate the Customs Development Financial Institutions Fund.
Veterans
$2,500	Cap increases in Department of Veterans Affairs health care spending.
$i,930	Reduce Veterans' Disability Bounty to account for Social Security Inability Insurance payments.
Cross-Agency and Other
$threescore,000	Repeal unspent stimulus spending.
$8,000	Switch to using the "Superlative CPI" in funding calculations.
$half dozen,000	Repeal the Davis–Bacon Deed.
$two,250	Eliminate Federal Communications Commission funding for school Internet service.
$2,000	Ban projection labor agreements on all federally funded construction projects.
$i,000	Eliminate the Small Business Administration, which unnecessarily intervenes in free markets.
$736	Eliminate the National Community Service programs, such equally AmeriCorps.
$253	Eliminate the Institute of Museum Services and Library Services.
$140	Eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities.
$133	Eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts.
$61	Eliminate Army Corps of Engineers funding for beach replenishment projects.
$10	Eliminate the Committee of Fine Arts.
$8	Eliminate the National Capital Planning Commission.
$5	Eliminate the Advisory Quango on Historic Preservation.
Total
$343,207 million

Implementing the $343 billion in recommended cuts listed in Tabular array i would reduce the deficit by somewhat less than $343 billion because some recommendations would also reduce taxation revenues. For example, devolving the federal highway program to states would also mean devolving the gas tax, and repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Intendance Human activity (Obamacare)[6] would repeal its tax increases.

Conclusion

Almost all of the proposed cuts in federal spending volition provoke strong objections from constituencies that benefit from having Members of Congress requite them taxpayer money taken from someone else. Yet the difficulties caused by each of these cuts should be measured against the condition quo option of doubling the national debt over the next decade, risking an economic crisis, and drowning time to come generations in taxes.

Governing involves difficult choices, and Congress simply cannot continue to court long-term disaster for all merely to avoid brusk-term difficulties for some.

—Brian M. Riedl is Grover M. Hermann Enquiry Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs in the Thomas A. Roe Plant for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Appendix

Additional Reading on Spending Recommendations

1. Congressional Budget Role, Upkeep Options, Vol. 1, Wellness Care, December 2008, at http://www.cbo.gov/medico.cfm?alphabetize=9925 (Oct xix, 2010).

ii. Congressional Budget Function, Budget Options, Vol. 2, Baronial 2009, at http://world wide web.cbo.gov/physician.cfm?alphabetize=10294 (October xix, 2010).

3. Brian M. Riedl, "50 Examples of Government Waste," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 2642, October 6, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/10/50-Examples-of-Authorities-Waste.

4. Republican Study Committee, "A Balanced Upkeep for America," May 2010, at http://rsc.tomprice.business firm.gov/UploadedFiles/RSC_FY11_BUDGET_BOOKLET—FINAL.pdf (October nineteen, 2010).

v. Paul Weinstein Jr. and Katie McMinn Campbell, "Return to Fiscal Responsibility II," Progressive Policy Institute Policy Report, April 2007, at http://www.ppionline.org/documents/Fiscal_Responsibility_04302007.pdf (October 19, 2010).

6. Scott A. Hodge, ed., Balancing America's Budget (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation, 1997).

7. Brian 1000. Riedl, "How to Become Federal Spending Nether Control," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1733, March 10, 2004, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2004/03/How-to-Go-Federal-Spending-Under-Command.

8. David B. Muhlhausen, "Why Would COPS 2.0 Succeed When COPS 1.0 Failed?" Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 1903, April 28, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2008/04/Why-Would-COPS-20-Succeed-When-COPS-ten-Failed.

9. David B. Muhlhausen, "Congress Spends Billions on Ineffective Job-Training Programs," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1597, October i, 2002, at http://world wide web.heritage.org/Enquiry/Reports/2002/10/Congress-Spends-Billions-on-Ineffective-Job-Training-Programs.

10. Robert Due east. Moffit, "The Prospects for Ending Obamacare: Learning from Health Policy History," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2424, June 21, 2010, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/06/The-Prospects-for-Ending-Obamacare-Learning-from-Health-Policy-History.

11. Matt A. Mayer, "An Analysis of Federal, Country, and Local Homeland Security Budgets," Heritage Foundation Center for Information Analysis Report No. CDA09–01, March 9, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/03/An-Assay-of-Federal-State-and-Local-Homeland-Security-Budgets.

12. Ronald Utt, "Volition a Bigger Role for States Improve Transportation Policy Performance?" in Wendell Cox, Alan Pisarski, and Ronald D. Utt, eds., 21st Century Highways (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation, 2005).

[one]U.South. Department of the Treasury, "Final Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government: For Fiscal Year 2010 Through September 30, 2010, and Other Periods," Oct 2010, at http://world wide web.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0910.pdf (Oct 27, 2010). Each yr's deficits are a record in nominal dollars and higher than any year since Earth War Ii as a share of the economy.

[2]Encounter Brian Yard. Riedl, "The Three Biggest Myths Nigh Taxation Cuts and the Budget Deficit," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2423, June 21, 2010, at http://www.heritage.org/Enquiry/Reports/2010/06/The-Three-Biggest-Myths-About-Tax-Cuts-and-the-Upkeep-Deficit. Absent a return to peace and prosperity, the projected deficit for FY 2020 would exist higher. The deficits for FY 2009 and FY 2010 reflect the net event of increased federal spending, including war costs, and decreased federal revenues, including decreases due to reduced national economic activity.

[3]See Riedl, "The Three Biggest Myths Nearly Tax Cuts and the Upkeep Arrears."

[4]Cuts to spending will not impairment economic recovery. Harvard economist Alberto Alesina recently showed that any effects of government spending would actually reduce economical growth. Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna, "Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes Versus Spending," revised October 2009, at http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/alesina/files/Large%2Bchanges%2Bin%2Bfiscal%2Bpolicy_October_2009.pdf (Oct 27, 2010). Encounter also Daniel J. Mitchell, "The Impact of Government Spending on Economic Growth," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1831, March 15, 2005, at http://www.heritage.org/research/budget/bg1831.cfm, and Brian M. Riedl, "Why Regime Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth: Answering the Critics," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2354, Jan 5, 2010, at http://world wide web.heritage.org/Research/Economic system/bg2354.cfm.

[half dozen]Public Police 111–148, as amended past Public Law 111–152.

Authors

Brian Riedl

Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute

smithworence.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/how-cut-343-billion-the-federal-budget

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