It’s Time to Cut Federal Spending and Shrink Government
The REDUCE Act
Realign and Eliminate Duplicative Unnecessary Costly Excess in Government Act
H.R. 6315
Based on the highly successful BRAC Commission
Legislation drafted by U.S. Representative John Fleming
The Problem
Record Deficits
$16 trillion national debt
Wasteful Spending
Duplicative Services
Unnecessary Agencies
The Model
The REDUCE Act is based on the highly successful BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) Commission that saved taxpayer dollars while helping the military to operate more efficiently. It’s time to take a lesson from this successful model and make the federal government smaller and more efficient.
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The Solution
Step 1: An honest, nonpartisan evaluation, including public input, of every federal agency and program for:
Duplication
Waste
Mismanagement
Inefficiency
Step 2: A plan presented to the President and Congress of agencies and programs to realign or eliminate.
If it’s become irrelevant, completed its purpose, or is failing to meet objectives, it’s time to close the doors.
Step 3: Once the President approves, the downsizing and realignment plan takes effect unless Congress acts to disapprove of the plan in its entirety.
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GAO Report: Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication
This report identifies government duplication, overlap, and fragmentation as well as other cost savings and revenue enhancement opportunities. Its findings involve a wide range of government missions and touch virtually all major federal departments and agencies.
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Four Elements of a Successful Government Waste Commission
Reform is necessary because the current budget process provides Congress little incentive to eliminate programs that clearly do not work. A well-designed government waste commission could overcome the budget process's pro-spending bias and encourage lawmakers to cut failing programs, providing enormous taxpayer savings.
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How to Improve the Government Waste Commission Proposals
To be effective, a government waste commission must be specifically designed to overcome the special interest logrolling that has protected wasteful spending for years. The proven model for doing this is the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commission, which has been used to close obsolete military bases since the 1980s.
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Every dollar the government borrows today is a dollar our children must pay back tomorrow with interest. In effect, we’re stealing their future. That isn’t fair, and it isn’t right.
The federal government now routinely runs budget deficits in excess of $1 trillion, and at $15.5 trillion, the national debt is now bigger than our entire economy – which means we owe more money than we make. Yet over the last two years, the independent Government Accountability Office has identified 1,500 wasteful and duplicative federal programs where taxpayers could potentially save $400 billion every year.
The chart below shows just a sample of Washington’s wasteful spending. Let’s be fair to our kids and give them a better future. Let’s cut the waste, cap the spending, and balance the budget
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