Government's Folly

In the Roman Republic times, when there was an emergency, the Senate would choose a dictator to lead them through the crisis. Let’s pretend the US Senate has made me dictator of the United States of America. I’m going to go through the proposed 2010 budget and start taking things out P. J. O’Rourke style (without coming back because of war and saying how we should add all of this money for the military. I took these numbers from Wikipedia which got it from the Whitehouse Website

If I was dictator. This is what I would do with the national budget.

(So-called) Mandatory spending: $2,184 billion (-17.9%)

$695 billion (+4.9%) – Social Security
Gone. Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme and as we saw recently with Bernard Madoff’s scheme, it must fail. No reform in the world will make it work.

$453 billion (+6.6%) – Medicare
$290 billion (+12.0%) – Medicaid
Cut. We can’t afford either of these.

$0 billion (-100%) – Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
Unless they add some other bailout in 2010

$0 billion (-100%) – Financial stabilization efforts
See above

$11 billion (+275%) – Potential disaster costs
Cut. FEMA completely screwed up the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. Private charities were the ones that got people through the tough times. One thing FEMA did do well was to take away people’s rights.

$571 billion (-15.2%) – Other mandatory programs
Cut. If it can’t be more specific than this then it probably isn’t needed.

$164 billion (+18.0%) – Interest on National Debt
I suppose we have to still pay this until the national debt is take care of, but under me the national debt’s days are numbered. Seymour Durst will take down his sign after I’m done with the national debt.

Discretionary spending: $1,368 billion (+7.0%)

$663.7 billion (+12.7%) – Department of Defense
Mostly cut (about $50 billions to start with leading to a complete cut). Apparently Obama is including $75.5 billion in supplemental appropriations for 2009 and $130.00 billion for 2010 to support ongoing overseas contingency operations, while increasing efforts in Afghanistan and drawing down troops from Iraq responsibly. I thought Obama was the anti-war candidate.

We can get rid of most of this since there is no reason to have troops in over 140 countries around the world. That is simply ridiculous.

$78.7 billion (-1.7%) – Department of Health and Human Services
Cut. Besides the fact that several of the purposes of this department is clearly unconstitutional, this department is just a waste of money that impedes medical progress.

$72.5 billion (+2.8%) – Department of Transportation
Cut. With roads congested the way they are, and example after example of roads becoming better when they are taken over by a private company, this seems like another complete waste of money.

$52.5 billion (+10.3%) – Department of Veterans Affairs
Cut. With the way the United States treats its veterans, this is obviously simply a waste of money. Besides, under my rule there would likely be no veterans since it would be very unlikely for me to go to war since I am not a war monger like most presidents (including the current one) since Abraham Lincoln.

$51.7 billion (+40.9%) – Department of State and Other International Programs
Cut. The last act of this department would be to exit all entangling treaties and announce completely free trade.

$47.5 billion (+18.5%) – Department of Housing and Urban Development
Cut. I have been in housing projects. They are a complete and utter failures, and the newer generation isn’t much better. The government needs to get out of the way and let the free market build cheap and affordable housing.

$46.7 billion (+12.8%) – Department of Education
Cut. Since this department was started, American children have slowly been getting stupider. We are constantly scoring poorer and poorer on tests in comparison with other countries. Let the local people figure out how to teach their children. They were doing a pretty damn good job before the government stuck it’s greedy little paws in there.

$42.7 billion (+1.2%) – Department of Homeland Security
Cut. The only thing this department has done is to take away our rights. They are most certainly not making us safer.

$26.3 billion (-0.4%) – Department of Energy
Cut. Apparently this department will begin to build a new economy that is powered by clean and secure energy through funding provided in the 2010 Budget and the $39 billion provided for energy programs in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen the government build an economy before. I’d like to see how he will perform this miracle of modern government.

Working in the energy industry and knowing how small of an impact that renewable energy is going to have in my lifetime no matter how much of my money the government throws at it, I know that like any illusionist, Obama is merely misdirecting our attention while he throws our money into a toilet, takes a crap on it, and then flushes it down the drain.

Maybe if this department ceased to exist, what should be the cheapest energy around, Nuclear, will finally be cheap.

$26.0 billion (+8.8%) – Department of Agriculture
Cut. I think it is time to stop all of these farm subsidiaries, and let food prices fall to a level that people can actually afford what they want to buy. It’s incredibly immoral for the government to artificially increase food prices to levels that poorer people can’t afford to feed their family just so some senators in big farm states can keep getting elected.

$23.9 billion (-6.3%) – Department of Justice
Cut. They obviously failed us on September 11th, 2001, and numerous other occasions. When something fails us so much, we don’t get more of it. That is idiotic.

$18.7 billion (+5.1%) – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Cut. They have successfully made it to the moon a few times. They also have successfully slowed Aerospace scientific progress to a standstill and basically have become a lobby group to stop private companies from showing them up in space exploration.

$13.8 billion (+48.4%) – Department of Commerce
Cut. Not good ever comes from regulating commerce. Gut, cut, cut!

$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of Labor
Cut. It’s unfortunate that the government has promoted the strangling of commerce through big labor. Yes, people now a days work less and in better conditions, but that is mostly because of all the progress we have had. We can now do things better and more efficient, and therefore don’t need people to work as much as 100 years ago. Also, because most products cost less than they did 100 years ago (taking inflation into account), people no longer have to work as long, and can hold out for better jobs.

$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of the Treasury
Mostly cut (1 billion sounds like a good number) The very first thing to go is the IRS. The second is the Federal Reserve. Both of these have stolen from countless people and have financially ruined countless more. Note, both of these are technically private organizations, but the Department of the Treasury deals with them so I have included them here. Also, since the size of government would be so much smaller, the Treasury Department could easily downsize too.

$12.0 billion (+6.2%) – Department of the Interior
Cut. Most if not every part of this department is unconstitutional, and should be left to the states, if not to the free market altogether.

$10.5 billion (+34.6%) – Environmental Protection Agency
Cut. It seems that the only purpose of the EPA is to take away the rights of the individual. Only by enforcing property rights will we help the environment. If somebody pollutes my land, air, or water I should be able to bring a lawsuit against them. This used to be how it worked until the government decided that the train companies had the right to pollute the land around the tracks, and that their owners couldn’t do anything about it.

$9.7 billion (+10.2%) – Social Security Administration
Cut. As noted above, Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme and will inevitably fail.

$7.0 billion (+1.4%) – National Science Foundation
Cut. Besides being 100% unconstitutional, it is immoral for the government to take money from one person and fund something that the original persona would not want to fund. On a practical level, when you get funding from the government, you do it their way, and history shows that their way is idiotic.

$5.1 billion (-3.8%) – Corps of Engineers
Cut. Another agency that wastes peoples money on projects whose benefits are arguable at best. The free market could do these projects much better. It is also completely unconstitutional.

$5.0 billion (+100%) – National Infrastructure Bank
Cut. I think that the government has screwed up the economy enough. Why spend $5.0 billion to screw it up even more.

$1.1 billion (+22.2%) – Corporation for National and Community Service
Cut. These groups teach are children to be good little citizens. Let’s let our the parents pick out what groups their children join. Besides, it is completely unconstitutional. Also, any forced national service like I hear Obama talk about so often is what is called Slavery, and that is prohibited by 13th Amendment.

$0.7 billion (0.0%) – Small Business Administration
Cut. I think the US government screws small businesses enough. Why must we have a whole department dedicated to screwing them.

$0.6 billion (-14.3%) – General Services Administration
Cut. This agency helps with the basic functioning of all of the other agencies. Since most of the other agencies above would be eliminated, and those left would be much reduced, this agency has lost its usefulness.

$19.8 billion (+3.7%) – Other Agencies
Cut. If there are so many agencies that some are put under an “Other Agencies” category, then we have a real problem. These are obviously useless, and probably unconstitutional, so they are gone.

$105 billion – Other
Probably some more money thrown down a feces laced toilet.

Grand total of my initial budget: 215 billion.

Much improved from the $3.55 of Obama. When the national debt is payed off and the national defence left to the states.

Then that total will be:  $1 billion.

My budget is 0.00028169014084507044% of Obama’s. What a saving! Now the country can get back to work.