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The government spends too much money but what if we no longer had....?

Smeagol

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One of the contentious issues with respect to the direction the nation is going surrounds government spending. On the local level my city has confronted the issue and the result has been:

-Placing public libraries on a rotating schedule where branches are open some days and closed others.
-Pay cuts for police officers.
-Ending school bus service for magnet schools where our best and brightest are on their own in getting to the schools that offer the best education the challenges their highest potential. One college preparatory school recognized as in the to 10 of all high schools in America saw a sharp decline in enrollment as lower income families opted to send their kids to neighborhood schools.
-Closing of fire stations.
-Debate on whether or not to shut down the rape crisis center as a cost cutting measure.

According to the advocates of keeping spending at higher levels, none of the cuts would have been necessary if homeowners would accept about a $150.00 to $200.00 increase in our annual property taxes or coughing up an extra $15 a month per household. Curiously, the same people opposed to increasing property taxes to pay for city operational expenses are also opposed to new federal banking regulations that ended tactics to help themselves to roughly $200 per year in what some consider unfair gotcha fees and arbitrary interest rate hikes on existing credit card balances, but that's another topic.

My question is what do you think we can do without and what do you think we cannot do without in order to save taxpayer money?

1. I think prisons can turn down the heat in the winter and the air-conditioning in the summer. In warmer weather prisons can make use of less expensive to operate fans to supplement higher air-conditioning settings.

2. For centuries human beings did just fine with no hot water. I support turning off the hot water in all government buildings with the exception of domiciles like military housing units and US Embassies but not prisons.

3. I think there are way too much road improvement projects, at least in my city. In the middle of all the cuts we were facing, perfectly good streets were constantly being ripped up and repaved. I say wait for the streets to actually need repaving before doing it.

4. Welfare recipients IMHO have no business buying alcohol or tobacco. Younger drivers in my state get a special color coded drivers license that tells merchants this person is underage and may not buy adult beverages or tobacco. Extend that restricted license to welfare recipients. I also say add recent DUI/DWI violators and anyone voluntarily wanting lower health, life and auto insurance premiums.

5. Through attrition stop hiring civilian federal employees and replace them with National Guardsmen and Military Reservists who agree to remain in the Guard or Reserves as a condition of continued employment, thus reducing the need for as many active duty military personnel. It might be necessary to increase the frequency of training weekends, etc. since they'd be ultimately replacing some of the active duty force.

6. Set traffic and other court fines on scales that are commensurate with the violators' income and assets. A multi-millionaire shouldn't have the same $80.00 speeding ticket as a guy working a 9 to 5 making $50,000 a year for a variety of reasons including the fact that their level of wealth means average income fines have no financial incentive for the wealthy to obey the law. Plus, we'd have more resources to fund things.

7. Create an automatic compliance tax system similar to gas taxes. We automatically pay gas taxes without thinking about it because they're rolled into the price of gas. Not only would we be freeing up all kinds of time and hassle from keeping receipts to completing complicated accounting reports every year, we've eliminated a huge bureaucracy of the federal government who's present job is to examine and manage our annual personal accounting reports.

8. Cutting college and university funding, especially in science, math and other high income professions of the future is a bad idea in an era where we are and will continue to compete with the third world for jobs. I do however support incentivising more online classes where feasible.
 
One of the contentious issues with respect to the direction the nation is going surrounds government spending. On the local level my city has confronted the issue and the result has been:

-Placing public libraries on a rotating schedule where branches are open some days and closed others.
-Pay cuts for police officers.
-Ending school bus service for magnet schools where our best and brightest are on their own in getting to the schools that offer the best education the challenges their highest potential. One college preparatory school recognized as in the to 10 of all high schools in America saw a sharp decline in enrollment as lower income families opted to send their kids to neighborhood schools.
-Closing of fire stations.
-Debate on whether or not to shut down the rape crisis center as a cost cutting measure.

According to the advocates of keeping spending at higher levels, none of the cuts would have been necessary if homeowners would accept about a $150.00 to $200.00 increase in our annual property taxes or coughing up an extra $15 a month per household. Curiously, the same people opposed to increasing property taxes to pay for city operational expenses are also opposed to new federal banking regulations that ended tactics to help themselves to roughly $200 per year in what some consider unfair gotcha fees and arbitrary interest rate hikes on existing credit card balances, but that's another topic.

My question is what do you think we can do without and what do you think we cannot do without in order to save taxpayer money?

1. I think prisons can turn down the heat in the winter and the air-conditioning in the summer. In warmer weather prisons can make use of less expensive to operate fans to supplement higher air-conditioning settings.

2. For centuries human beings did just fine with no hot water. I support turning off the hot water in all government buildings with the exception of domiciles like military housing units and US Embassies but not prisons.

3. I think there are way too much road improvement projects, at least in my city. In the middle of all the cuts we were facing, perfectly good streets were constantly being ripped up and repaved. I say wait for the streets to actually need repaving before doing it.

4. Welfare recipients IMHO have no business buying alcohol or tobacco. Younger drivers in my state get a special color coded drivers license that tells merchants this person is underage and may not buy adult beverages or tobacco. Extend that restricted license to welfare recipients. I also say add recent DUI/DWI violators and anyone voluntarily wanting lower health, life and auto insurance premiums.

5. Through attrition stop hiring civilian federal employees and replace them with National Guardsmen and Military Reservists who agree to remain in the Guard or Reserves as a condition of continued employment, thus reducing the need for as many active duty military personnel. It might be necessary to increase the frequency of training weekends, etc. since they'd be ultimately replacing some of the active duty force.

6. Set traffic and other court fines on scales that are commensurate with the violators' income and assets. A multi-millionaire shouldn't have the same $80.00 speeding ticket as a guy working a 9 to 5 making $50,000 a year for a variety of reasons including the fact that their level of wealth means average income fines have no financial incentive for the wealthy to obey the law. Plus, we'd have more resources to fund things.

7. Create an automatic compliance tax system similar to gas taxes. We automatically pay gas taxes without thinking about it because they're rolled into the price of gas. Not only would we be freeing up all kinds of time and hassle from keeping receipts to completing complicated accounting reports every year, we've eliminated a huge bureaucracy of the federal government who's present job is to examine and manage our annual personal accounting reports.

8. Cutting college and university funding, especially in science, math and other high income professions of the future is a bad idea in an era where we are and will continue to compete with the third world for jobs. I do however support incentivising more online classes where feasible.

Special interest groups and special pet projects need to go.
 
Remove any and all government not specifically provided for by the enumerated powers of the constitution.
 
My question is what do you think we can do without and what do you think we cannot do without in order to save taxpayer money?

1. I think prisons can turn down the heat in the winter and the air-conditioning in the summer. In warmer weather prisons can make use of less expensive to operate fans to supplement higher air-conditioning settings.

Want to save some real money at the prisons? Here is something that I published in a little collection of essays

The US is seriously damaged by drug trafficking from Mexico to the US. Countless people in the US suffer addiction, become indigent because all their income goes to drug purchases and / or they lose their employment due to being high, commit crimes because they need money for drug dependency, or suffer overdoses. Consider the enormous expense that we endure as our prison population soars with millions of drug users and street dealers. WE FOCUS ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION FROM WHICH WE ULTIMATELY BENEFIT WHILE WE ARE INEFFECTIVE AT ADDRESSING DRUG TRAFFICKING THAT SERIOUSLY HURTS US. Our policy for combating drug trafficking is unified with our immigration exclusion policy. We think that we can block the trafficking by building more layers of razor wire at the border, increasing border patrols, adding more high tech surveillance, and generally applying more firepower at the border. It’s a “twofer” - we think that we are getting two benefits for each dollar spent reinforcing the border when we have actually failed to deter either the flow of people or the flow of drugs. Motivated, inventive people, always find new ways around fixed defenses. Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry once said that building a 30 foot tall fence at the border will only improve the 35 foot ladder business. WHAT WE ARE ACTUALLY DOING IS ALIENATING THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT AND SENDING A DAMAGING MESSAGE TO THE WORLD – IT APPEARS AS THOUGH WE ARE UNFRIENDLY TO OUR NEIGHBOR! Our justification is that we must do this to protect ourselves – yet it is clear that this strategy does not work. It is time to seek a fundamentally different strategy. - from the essay "Neighbors Hand in Hand" in The Wind of Hope

"If you keep doing what you have been doing you will keep getting what you have always gotten" - from somebody in our American tradition
 
No airforce or border patrol, eh?

I never thought of that! We could create a huge list:

The FBI
The CIA
The FAA and Air Traffic Control
The Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The Interstate Highway System
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center
The Centers for Disease Control
The FEC
FEMA
The FDA
EEOC
FTC
EPA
Small Business Administration
Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Plus a bunch of others. I think some could be detached from the Federal Government but not all.
 
Is this a local or federal question? Or both? It seems to have started local, then went federal.

I was thinking both but if someone simply wants to address local or federal expenses, that's fine.
 
I do not believe the Federal Government should collect taxes from me. Those taxes should come from my state. The reason for this is, my state only has 7 representatives in the Congress and Senate. That is a extremely small percentage compared to other states. However, my state pays an incredible amount of taxes to the fed. Shouldn't we get more of a say where our money goes? I can influence my local government, but not the fed. That is a huge issue. Look at this map: 800px-US_states_by_federal_tax_revenue_per_capita.svg.jpg

The darker the spot, the more taxes are paid per capita. 7 reps for CT, and we are paying a buttload of Federal taxes. In 2007, we were 16th on the total of taxes paid.

Federal tax revenue by state - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
I never thought of that! We could create a huge list:

The FBI
The CIA
The FAA and Air Traffic Control
The Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The Interstate Highway System
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center
The Centers for Disease Control
The FEC
FEMA
The FDA
EEOC
FTC
EPA
Small Business Administration
Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Plus a bunch of others. I think some could be detached from the Federal Government but not all.

Eliminate them all, the states can handle it.
 
I believe that we should become what we intended to be - a union of indpendent states. That would put competition into government and competition is what fosters innovation and efficiency. I would limit the federal executive branch to three missions only - Defending the country (Dept of Defense,) Dealing and treating with other countries (Department of State) and resolving inter state issues (Department of Justice.) Everhting else should either be moved to the states or private sector or be abolished entirely. In other words I would support cutting out most of the federal government.
 
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