TRIMMING THE DEFICIT

The Cato Institute has just a few ideas on how we can trim billions in spending over the next ten years.

• Scrapping the departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development saves $550 billion
• Ending farm subsidies would produce nearly $290 billion
• Cutting NASA spending by 50% would save $90 billion
• Repealing Davis-Bacon labor rules produces $60 billion
• Ending urban mass transit grants would save $52 billion
• Privatizing air traffic control, as other nations have done, saves $38 billion
• Privatize Amtrak and end rail subsidies and save $31 billion
• Reform federal worker retirement, $18 billion
• Retire Americorps, $10 billion
• Shutter the Small Business Administration, $14 billion.                  

Neal Boortz would also add to that list: getting rid of the Department of Education.  Here's his argument...very interesting:

Since its creation in 1979, it has done nothing but drain money from our coffers, empower teachers unions and done absolutely nothing to improve the education of our children. Since 1979, we have not seen any improvement in test scores of American students .. in fact, they are getting worse. At the same time, the department's budget has increased from $14.5 billion in 1979 to over $50 billion today. In a Cato Institute handbook from 2004, it quotes the admission of a House Democrat: "The idea of an Education Department is really a bad one. But it's NEA's top priority. There are school teachers in every congressional district and most of us simply don't need the aggravation of taking them on.'' It has nothing to do with the education of your child and everything to do with unions. If the Republicans want to show that they are serious about spending cuts and about the future of this country, they can start by getting rid of the Department of Education.
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