Kill Waste by Ending Program Duplicity
Congressman John Fleming, MD (R-La.-4)
Congress and the White House are very good at starting or expanding federal agencies and programs, but they are not good at all when it comes to cutting, sunsetting, or ending them. One recent inventory identified more than 1,500 programs spread across two dozen federal agencies. Then there are the endless presidential councils, commissions, and task forces, like the White House Task Force on New Americans, which President Obama established last fall.
Far too often, new federal creations result in overlap, duplication, and wasted tax dollars. And yet they stay in business. As Ronald Reagan said, “Government programs, once launched, never disappear.”
The government’s own watchdog agency, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), produces an annual duplication report. Over three years, the reports have found approximately 400 areas that, if cut, would produce a total savings in the billions of dollars. Too often, however, Congress has lacked the will and the White House has lacked the desire to follow through and make the cuts.
We need a way to depoliticize the process of closing and downsizing federal agencies. The parochial interests of 535 members of Congress must be blunted if we are ever to truly downsize the federal government. That’s why I’ve written the REDUCE Government Act — the Realign and Eliminate Duplicative Unnecessary Costly Excess in Government Act.
REDUCE is based on a successful model: the Defense Base Closure and Realignment (BRAC) Commission. For more than 20 years, the Defense Department has successfully used the BRAC process for the difficult task of closing military bases that outlived their usefulness. If the process had been left entirely in the hands of Congress, most of the 350-plus installations that have been closed — and often repurposed and redeveloped for civilian uses — would not have been touched and would remain an unnecessary drag on the federal budget.
The BRAC Commission works. It has saved taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars by cutting Congress out of the process and delegating an independent panel to perform a careful nonpartisan analysis and judgment. The panel presents its list of recommended closures to the president, who may approve the list in its entirety or disapprove it with comments. Once the president approves the list, Congress has the option of allowing it to become binding or disapproving the list — but only in its entirety, not picking winners and losers.
REDUCE would follow the BRAC pattern by creating an independent, bipartisan panel that would systematically identify federal programs and agencies that are duplicative, wasteful, or failed. Once identified, these entities would be recommended for closure or elimination. The president would be given an opportunity to comment on the list, and Congress would have 45 days to disapprove of the entire list. Barring such an act, the REDUCE list would be enacted and the programs closed down, and the taxpayers finally would begin to see a savings.
The REDUCE Act is an innovative turn on a tried-and-proven method of reducing government waste. Our federal government is $18 trillion in debt. We need serious actions to cut spending. REDUCE deserves a hearing and a vote in the House.
