As advertised, here is our episode of governmental pork slash bureaucracy. Seems fitting since I have no doubt that under the Harris administration it is going to grow to an unheard-of size. One thing I believe wholeheartedly is that the democratic party loves to create programs or agencies that sounds good but does absolutely nothing. If I had to give one reason why I vote Republican, it is because (in theory at least) the Republicans will let me keep more of my money. Plain and simple. Most revenues acquired by our government to pay for the budget comes from income tax. Before I start ranting about taxation being theft (that episode is coming soon by the way) let us stay on topic. This episode is going to focus on the size of our government as a whole and why it is a problem. I am not going to bore you with an itemized list of agencies we pay for with little or no return on investment. You have things to do and that sounds too much lyke work. At the same tyme, don’t take my word for it, look it up when you get a chance, maybe while you’re waiting in line at the DMV or something.
Bear with me while we do a little Civics refresher. The annual budget entails three areas; the funding of Federal agencies, paying interest on our insane amount of debt and paying out Social Security, Medicare, VA disabilities (thank you by the way). Next year our government is going to spend just shy of $5 trillion. That’s trillion with a “T”. We must fund Social Security, Medicare, and such, so that’s around $3 trillion. We also must pay at least the interest portion of our debt which is about $400 billion. Anyone with a credit card knows that just paying interest is not really the smart way to do things, but who has ever claimed the government ever does anything the smart way? So that leaves us with $1.6 trillion to do a $2.6 trillion job, which forces us to borrow another $1trillion. That is the best-case scenario that does not involve another lockdown. That $1 trillion could easily become over a $2 trillion deficit.
Now that we got that out of the way, let's figure out how we got here. The quick and easy answer is the Great Depression and the dust bowl. While the New Deal was instrumental in ending the Great Depression, well that and WWII, it also set precedence in bloating the size of the government. Today we have over 400 Federal agencies. Are they all needed? Nope. We spend $360 million a year on the Rural Electrification Administration! It was created in 1935 to expand electricity and telephone lines to rural areas. It worked. Not only did it do what it was meant to do, but it also created jobs at a tyme when we needed to put people to work. The REA was needed at one tyme, not anymore. There are at least 9 other programs lyke the REA that could be trashed and save us $5 billion a year. Now I know $5 billion is nothing compared to a $5 trillion budget, but it's a start. It is, however, another $20 for every taxpayer a year. I could use an extra $20 of my money.
Aside from scrapping useless agencies, we can also combine some agencies. There are over 75 Federal law enforcement agencies. We have park rangers, park police, wildlife, and fisheries, and so on and so on. What happens when there is an incident? Probably some struggle over jurisdiction and whoever has the biggest…..ahem, budget, most likely wins. The main problem with so many different agencies is that you end up with too many cooks in the kitchen. So, when you get a bunch of top dogs in that kitchen, they all want to prove that they are the most important. Egos get in the way of progress, which leads to the disruption of free-flowing information. For decades, the CIA and FBI worked to undermine each other versus working with each other. It took the horrendous attack on 9/11 before they realized that they are on the same team.
The trouble with so many agencies is that they mostly work independently of one another. This year $1.4 billion of stimulus checks were sent to dead people. How can there be over a million dead people in a first world country, and the federal government has no idea? We have already established that I am an astonishing simple-minded man, so I am having trouble grasping this. Here is how I thought it should work. The coroner signs a death certificate, the deceased name is added to a database, the Social Security Office gets a notification, the voter registrar gets a notification, the census bureau gets a notification, and so forth and so forth. They then put the deceased person in a "Do Not Send" list. Apparently, it is not that straightforward. Earlier this year an elderly woman was found dead in her house. While doing an inventory of her estate, they found her dead husband in the freezer. He had died of natural causes months earlier. Because she was afraid of losing his Social Security check, she put him on ice and kept her mouth shut. Kudos to her. This is an isolated instance and for over a million deceased people to go unchecked is absurd.
The number of redundant agencies is not the only problem as it concerns the budget either. Bureaucracy is another side effect of bloating. We can all agree that a system of checks and balances is intricate for the Republic, but now we have checks, and checks, and checks…… It is to a point of insanity. If a maintenance person needs a new mop, it probably has to be approved by nine different people, over the course of three months, before he finally gets the last needed “approve” stamped on the request, and taxpayers end up paying $100 for a mop and a stupid amount of man-hours. Requisition forms, TPS reports, forms filled out in quadruplicate, and on and on and on. We do not need more cooks; we just need better ones.
Another area that can be scaled down or simply eliminated is the Department of Education. Now before you lose your minds, here me out. Since its inception, we have consistently moved further and further down the world rankings in education. The DoED has a budget of $129.8 billion a year, and what have we got in return? I recently earned my associate degree and find it difficult to be proud of it. I have an I.Q. of 48 and still graduated somewhere around the top 20% of my class. A class by the way where some students didn't know the difference between a terrorist and a tourist. Because I have an innate knack for kicking cans down the road, I will be doing an episode on education at some later point.
One of the largest contributors to the discretionary portion of the budget is the Department of Defense. It is somewhere around $690 billion a year. As most of you know, I am a proud, combat-tested, veteran. A strong US military is something that is not just important for our safety but for the stability of the world. And the more stability there is in the world, creates more opportunity for wealth in America. Capitalism and stability go hand in hand. Now saying all that, there are mass amounts of waste in the DoD. In my small bubble in the United States Marine Corps, I saw waste, so it is unimaginable how much waster there actually is. For instance, while in Kuwait we got the opportunity to do a training exercise with DynCorp. DynCorp is a private company specializing in operational readiness. Even though the training was fun, it was not essential. Any infantry Corporal could have done the same training for a fraction of the cost. In fact, the US spent over $100 billion on private military contracts lyke DynCorp. This is why we have a military. If you want another example, investigate the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and its history.
How can we reduce our bloated government? It won’t be easy that’s for sure. And what I suggest is going to sound redundant and retarded. We need a group of people to represent us and go to the House and the Senate and audit them. I know, I know, isn't that who we vote for every couple of years. No, we vote for politicians to go to D.C. and play grab-ass. And I know that there are many auditing agencies in the government, but there are also a bunch of governmental ethics committees. Do you really believe that a government agency will truly assess themselves? It's lyke letting the fox guard the chicken coop. What do we do with the employees of a department or agency that we get rid of? For those close to retirement, we buy them out, and for everyone else, we design a severance package according to tenure. Maybe they can form a company that fixes milkshake machines. Lord knows they could make a fortune on McDonald's alone.
In the meantime, call your elected representatives and tell them what you think. They work for you, so don’t be afraid to constantly remind them. Have a great week and don’t forget to laugh, cry, and think every day