A department-by-department guide to cutting the government's budget.
The Department of Transportation subsidizes and regulates highways, airports, air traffic control, urban transit, and passenger rail.
The department will spend $79 billion in 2011, or about $670 for every U.S. household. It employs 58,000 workers and operates 84 different subsidy programs.
The Department of Agriculture administers large farm subsidy programs and runs the food stamp and school lunch programs.
The department will spend about $152 billion in 2011, or about $1,200 for every U.S. household. It employs 98,000 workers and operates more than 235 subsidy programs.
The Department of Education provides loans and grants to college students and subsidizes elementary and secondary schools.
The department will spend $79 billion in 2011, or about $670 for every U.S. household. It employs 4,400 workers and operates 171 subsidy programs.
Obama Is Avoiding the Tough College Course
College prices truly are ridiculous. But someone needs to tell President Obama that the root problem isn’t the colleges, which he is expected to announce today will be the targets of proposed sanctions should they raise prices too fast. No, the problem, Mr. President, is a federal government that wants to play Santa Claus by giving everybody, no matter how poorly qualified or unmotivated, money for college. Read more
Biennial Budgeting: Baloney Budget Reform
I don’t recall ever agreeing with the left-liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), but their new paper on the drawbacks of the federal government switching to biennial budgeting is a good read. Congressional Republicans, including House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-AL), are the chief proponents of switching to a biennial budget cycle. By providing (qualified) support to the CBPP paper, I’m hoping to demonstrate to would-be GOP naysayers that criticism of biennial budgeting isn’t confined to one area of the ideological spectrum. Read more
A Redistributive State of the Union
Shortly after President Obama was elected, NBC News interviewed a young woman from Detroit named Peggy Joseph. She explained that she was excited about Obama’s election because “I won’t have to worry about putting the gas in my car. I won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage.” Read more
