Atlasian Citizens for a Balanced Budget

[Emsworth]

Cut spending and move some services to the regions. Regional governments could provide the services their citizens need better than the federal government does.

Unfunded mandates?  Thanks a lot.

The regions should be allowed to provide, or not provide, these services as they see fit.

[Emsworth]

Here are a few specific ideas (savings in parantheses):

- Abolish the Bureau of Indian Affairs ($2.4 billion): Native American Tribes make billions of dollars in gambling revenue. It is not the federal government's job to subsidize them. Furthermore, subsidizing individuals simply because of their ethnicity is fundamentally unfair.

- Abolish the Indian Health Service ($2.9 billion): I see no reason for which Native Americans should have a special government health service.

- Privatize the Tennessee Valley Authority ($22 billion) and Bonneville Power Marketing Administration ($15 billion): There is no reason for which the government should continue to run these programs; they can and should be fully privatized. According to the CBO estimate, the TVA would fetch $22-30 billion, and the Bonneville PMA $15-20 billion.

These three steps alone would reduce the deficit by approximately $42 billion-$55 billion. No doubt, a few more similar actions will quickly wipe out the whole deficit.