Fed departmental slashes

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Precision
Posts: 5268
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:01 pm

Fed departmental slashes

Post by Precision »

Cross posted from my blog
Not as thought out / written out as I probably should have done, but I was pressed for time and didn't want the thought to disappear.
give your improvements, not that anyone will listen...

Shaving the Federal Bureaucracy 2017

http://thefederalist.com/2017/03/20/tru ... -agencies/

Hat tip to Peter Grant: http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com ... ll-it.html

I have been saying this for years. It is not like I am the first, the last or the best at stating it. Tons of people have been suggesting the Federal bureaucracy needs to be slashed. The preferred method among my peer group Constitutional Conservatives is to abolish all Federal agencies that are not explicitly delineated in the Constitution. If they are not provided for in the Constitution, then they are STATE jobs.

My plan has been to have cumulative 25% cuts for the first 2 years. Then 35% cumulative cuts the next two years. The following year would be a 50% cumulative cut and the next year would have a budget of zero. The stated goal is the complete elimination of all Federal duties of the affected agencies. Where not completely possible, those few tasks fold into Constitutionally allowed agencies who receive zero budgetary increase. Year 6 being the zero funding year. All rounding down to the nearest whole percentage point.

The math for the Federal Department of Education

2016 was 100% funding ………………………………….15,536,107,000

2017 – year one of cuts would be 75.0% of 2016………….11,652080250

2018 – year two would be 56.0% of 2016 ……………….8,700,219,920

2019 – year three at 36.0% of 2016………………………5,592,998,520

2020 – year four at 23.0% of 2016…………………………3,573,304,610

2021 – year five at 11.0% of 2016………………………….1,708,971,770

2022 – year six at 0.0% of 2016……………………………ZERO

In budgetary reality, the 2017 budget is probably already or close to being set, so this would likely need to be done starting at 2018 and the entire process moved back one year. This delay will have significant consequences if Trump (or another NON-Democrat) is not elected in Nov of 2020. Even so, a 77% reduction would be an awesome thing. Most of the Federal Department of Education is blackmail grants. These grants total just over $10B.

My suggestion of the Agencies to keep:

Department of Defense – Renamed Department of War 25% increase in spending over 2016 levels

Department of State – Renamed Department of Diplomacy 25% cut in budget

Department of Treasury – same name with complete defunding of the IRS in 36 months (33.4% budget drop annually) with the creation of the Fair Tax implementation bureau in June of 2017. The last IRS tax return will be for year 2017, due April 15 2018. All IRS activities will cease at month 37 with follow up and prosecution of legacy cases turned over to the Fair Tax bureau and to be resolved within 24 months. Loss of IRS budget and 25% additional budget cut. Fair tax Bureau budget of $2B for first 2 years, then $1.8B and $1.5B respectively in year 3 and 4. Congressional oversight after that.

Department of Commerce –

Department of Justice – same name with complete defunding of the ATF on the same path as IRS defunding.

There may be other agencies that need to be kept. I will entertain well thought out reasons as to why. But for now, all other agencies die as per the Department of Education example above and associated Federal taxes are dropped as the duties revert back to the states. There will be a 1 year delay in lowering of the tax rate to match decreased expenditures, to allow for the excess funds as a direct payoff of the National Debt.
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randy
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Re: Fed departmental slashes

Post by randy »

Since the National Weather Service falls under Commerce in your proposal, that's covered. I don't think most people realize how important they are in daily operations for agencies at all levels of government, and how many of the TV/Radio "forecasters" are simply repeating what the NWS published. It's one of the areas where I'm not convinced that commercialization (proposed a few years ago) would be an improvement, and might be a disaster.

I think the Federal Communications Commission has an important role when it comes to the regulation and management of the Radio Frequency spectrum. I think a case could be made to get them out of industry regulation and restricted to ensuring that none one is messing up the RF spectrum for everyone else.
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