Another plan to cut the deficit

As I mentioned on Nov. 30, I've been on the lookout for deficit reduction plans. Most aren't worth mentioning. But I think this one is a better start than most. It comes from the Heritage Foundation, and would cut more than $300 billion from government spending. Still not enough, but you gotta start somewhere.

Table 1: Spending Cuts for FY 2012

(in millions of dollars)

Agriculture
$15,000	Replace farm subsidies with Farmer Savings Accounts and improved crop insurance.
$2,033	Eliminate the Foreign Agriculture Service.
$1,500	Merge all four agriculture outreach and research agencies and cut their budget in half.
$1,000	Fund the Food Safety and Inspection Service with user fees.
Commerce
$500	Eliminate business subsidies from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Community Development
$6,000	Eliminate the Community Development Block Grant program.
$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 Business Agency.
$8	Eliminate the Delta Regional Authority.
Education
$8,000	Return Pell Grants to their 2009 funding level of $24 billion, which is still double the 2007 level.
$2,000	Trim Head Start by $2 billion and convert it into vouchers.
$2,000	Scale back the Education Department bureaucracy.
$1,500	Eliminate dozens of small and duplicative education grants.
$298	Eliminate state grants for Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities.
Energy and the Environment
$6,500	Reduce 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, especially by reducing Medicare errors and earned income tax credit errors. Tighten oversight by spending $5 billion on new resources, such as updated computer systems, and 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	Cut the federal employee travel budget to $4 billion (half of FY 2000 spending).
$3,000	Freeze federal pay until it can be reformed.
$1,000	Suspend acquisition of federal office space.
$600	Trim the federal vehicle fleet by 20 percent (a reduction of 100,000 vehicles).
$300	Cut the House and Senate budgets back to the 2008 level of $2.2 billion.
$215	Eliminate the Presidential Election Campaign Fund.
$100	Tighten controls on federal employee credit cards and cut down on delinquencies.
$70	Require federal employees to fly coach on domestic flights.
Health Care
$6,200	Reform Medigap.
$5,000	Repeal Obamacare (larger savings in later years).
$3,700	Require Medicare home health 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 Health Service Corps.
$98	Repeal Rural Health Outreach and Flexibility grants.
Homeland Security
$2,700	Eliminate most homeland security grants to states and allow states to finance their own programs.
Income Security
$500	Better enforce eligibility requirements for food stamps.
Interior
$1,500	Open the coastal plain 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 land purchases.
International
$2,636	Eliminate the Development Assistance Program.
$625	Eliminate the State Department’s education and cultural exchange programs.
$321	Eliminate the International Trade Administration’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 Department.
$56	Eliminate the Trade and Development Agency.
$29	Eliminate the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
$19	Eliminate the East–West Center.
$17	Eliminate the United States Institute of Peace.
$2	Eliminate the Japan–United States Friendship Commission.
Justice
$7,334	Eliminate all Justice Department grants except those from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Institute 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 Division by 20 percent because of its policy against race-neutral enforcement of the law.
$4	Eliminate the State Justice Institute.
Labor
$4,300	Eliminate failed federal job training programs.
$2,000	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 Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.
Veterans
$2,500	Cap increases in Department of Veterans Affairs health care spending.
$1,930	Reduce Veterans’ Disability Compensation to account for Social Security Disability Insurance payments.
Cross-Agency and Other
$60,000	Repeal unspent stimulus spending.
$8,000	Switch to using the “Superlative CPI” in funding calculations.
$6,000	Repeal the Davis–Bacon Act.
$2,250	Eliminate Federal Communications Commission funding for school Internet service.
$2,000	Ban project labor agreements on all federally funded construction projects.
$1,000	Eliminate the Small Business Administration, which unnecessarily intervenes in free markets.
$736	Eliminate the National Community Service programs, such as 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 Commission of Fine Arts.
$8	Eliminate the National Capital Planning Commission.
$5	Eliminate the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
Total
$343,207 million