Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Here are a few more I just emailed to him myself at 3:30 pm CST on May 2, 2011.
Senator Rand Paul on Feb 7, 2011 wrote the article “A Modest $500 Billion Proposal: My spending cuts would keep 85% of government funding and not touch Social Security,” Wall Street Journal and he observed:
Add to that my proposed reductions in international aid, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and other federal agencies, and we arrive at over $500 billion.
My proposal, not surprisingly, has been greeted skeptically in Washington, where serious spending cuts are a rarity. But it is a modest proposal when measured against the size of our mounting debt. It would keep 85% of our government funding in place and not touch Social Security or Medicare. But by reducing wasteful spending and shuttering departments that are beyond the constitutional role of the federal government, such as the Department of Education, we can cut nearly 40% of our projected deficit and at the same time remove thousands of big-government bureaucrats who stand in the way of efficiency.
Images.com/Corbis
Examples of federal waste are more abundant than ever. For example, the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapons activities should be placed under the purview of the Department of Defense. Many of its other activities amount to nothing more than corporate handouts. It provides research grants and subsidies to energy companies for the development of new, cleaner forms of energy. This means nearly all forms of energy development here in the U.S. are subsidized by the federal government, from oil and coal to nuclear, wind, solar and biofuels. These subsidies often go to research and companies that can survive without them. This drives up the cost of energy for all Americans, both as taxpayers and consumers.
Here are some of his specific suggestions:
Agriculture Research Service: Eliminated
Per the CATO Institute: “Most American industries fund their own research and development programs. The agriculture industry is a notable exception. USDA spends about $3 billion annually on agricultural research, statistical information services, and economic studies.”
Agriculture, like all other industries can perform its own research and development without the use of federal subsidies to do so. The research done by USDA is there to keep the status quo.
National Institute of Food and Agriculture: Eliminated
National Institute of Food and Agriculture is the parent agency to the Agriculture Research Service. NIFA is essentially the communications arm to spread ARS information to the public. The department’s main area of study is responding to “quality-of-life problems” – (1) Improving agricultural productivity, (2) Creating new products, (3) Protecting animal and plant health, (4) Promoting sound human nutrition and health, (5) Strengthening children, youth, and families, (6) Revitalizing rural American communities.
When looking at their main focus issues, we can see that like ARS, government and its subsidiaries are in the business of keeping the status quo and stifle real research and development.
Natural Resources Conservation Service: Eliminated
This issue is best left up to the states to determine what the best way is to preserve and protect their environment.
The balance of using the resources available for production, conservation, and recreation is best decided by from people in the region.
Foreign Agricultural Services: Eliminated
Originally, this agency was created to manage our agricultural trade agreements and the daily/weekly prices of agriculture commodities across the globe. In a world of constant information, we do not need this program putting out daily reports regarding the fluctuations of commodity prices.
The Daily Hatch 