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Between common sense and the Constitution, slashing the size of the government to save money and return sanity to D.C. really isn't that difficult.It’s easy to say that stuff has to go. Unfortunately, lots of Swamp critters have burrowed deeply into the muck surrounding the White House. And while Vivek and Elon are really smart, there are a couple of blind spots that can be fixed. Maybe more than a couple…
The most obvious is simple. Most people who have reached a degree of education fit for the task of helping out with DOGE are old enough that the 80-hour weeks that Musk and Ramaswamy demand are a problem. I used to work such hours when I was younger in an understaffed hospital Anesthesia department. I definitely fit the IQ requirement they’ve put out, but I no longer have the physical stamina for those long hours. If that requirement were dropped for certain supporting roles, I’d be ready to work. One job I’d volunteer for would be as an idea screener.
Suppose that a website was set up to receive ideas for government waste reduction. It would become a portal for suggestions that would then be batted around before massaging them into tight presentations for the big Kahunas. Of course, ideas that have already been presented would be listed in an “already received” library that is visible to all so that they don’t have to be dealt with repetitively. Ideas that are simply unacceptable, such as “burn down the department with them in it,” would be labeled as out of bounds, even if the sentiment has a certain attraction. As time passes, the site would grow and change to meet the need.
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Next, we must deal with the mechanics of change. Lots of federal programs are the internal creations of the department in which they reside and are not specifically established by statute. This provides a bit of low-hanging fruit. Every one of those programs can be terminated immediately. If a federal employee is assigned to a terminated program, that employee’s job no longer exists. That allows the department to terminate that employee’s paycheck without any recourse. This approach alone might balance the federal budget.
The next branch up the tree is security clearances. Large parts of the federal government require employees to have them. The Mar-a-Lago case led to wide discussions about how the President may or may not manage classification and security clearances. It is now widely understood that the President is the ultimate classification authority. If he declares that certain employees no longer possess valid security clearances, those people will no longer be able to work for the government. If they cannot work, they cannot get paid. Of course, if they were offered some severance pay, many would move out on their own.
At this time, we need to start looking outside the box because eliminating whole departments, such as the Department of Education, will require Congressional action.
There are ways around eliminating departments, though. Moving the Department of the Interior to the interior of the US—perhaps North Dakota—comes to mind. I’m sure there’s some remote federal land on the Canadian border that can be put to use. If Interior were moved, a lot of people would resign rather than relocate. More savings.
Send the Energy Department to Florida, where we have lots of offshore oil, or, on second thought, to Fairbanks, Alaska, near North Slope oil. We don’t really want them in Florida.
With this type of relocation, destination cities would see tax benefits, and the DC suburbs would be far less blue. Bureaucrats residing in Loudoun County would suddenly find their way to new employers, mostly removed from the DC area.
When these left-leaning counties are depopulated of Swamp creatures, housing prices will fall, making them attractive for less luxuriously paid employees in companies that actually produce something. The force to keep Virginia blue will be rapidly reversed by the good people of the Commonwealth.
Another way to reduce government costs is to make all government grants subject to such strict criteria that no one can meet them. Congress can appropriate money for NIH for grants, but it can’t create the criteria for each one. That set of requirements is set within the halls to soon be run by RFK Junior.
Up till now, grants have almost exclusively gone to research that is constructed in a way to support the current political orthodoxy. I know that Democrats contend that NIH is a “health” agency. However, it actually acts as a political agency, and that must be stopped.
Placing a final arbiter who excludes political criteria in studies will save almost all of the research money NIH shovels out to its friends. This does not require Congressional action.
Then, in the next budget, all grants of every sort can be defunded. This includes block grants to states for Medicaid, schools, and whatever. Why should our tax money be sent to DC just so it can come back to us? Let DC focus on foreign issues to protect us. We can take care of the rest without having bureaucrats suck up a lot as baksheesh.
Extending this logic, all foreign aid is unconstitutional. Article 1, Section 8 lists what is allowed, and aid to foreign countries isn’t in it. Complete the committed sales to Taiwan and Israel and then turn them into actual business partners in various defense projects. We’re already doing it in the Iron Dome system. Why not let Israel test that truck-mounted laser system in a real battle against incoming missiles instead of letting the Army twiddle its thumbs for two more years before declaring it operational? Either it works, or it doesn’t. This pattern has been proven.
Hitler sent his Luftwaffe to Spain in the 1930s to work out its kinks in the Spanish Civil War before starting a Blitzkrieg against Poland. We did the same in the Pacific when we took B-25 medium bombers and turned them into extremely lethal gunships against Japanese shipping by adding extra machine guns and howitzers to them. Of course, our military in theater took this idea further with the AC-47 Spooky, a DC-3 fitted with massive machine guns and howitzers in the side. Our ground forces in Viet Nam were more than happy that the pencil pushers in the Pentagon didn’t get in the way of that combat innovation.
Returning to Article I, Section 8, look at the list that starts with “to borrow money…” If something isn’t specifically on that list, cross it out of the budget. This will get rid of the blank check that the Supreme Court wrote when it said that the “general welfare” clause was infinitely elastic.
I can go on ranting, but you get the picture. The list of low-hanging fruit is, as Iceman told Maverick, “long and distinguished.”
Ted Noel is a retired physician who posts on social media as Doctor Ted. His Doctor Ted’s Prescription podcast is available on multiple podcast channels.
