I take it this poll applies only to the Federal Government.
The poll is incompetently framed, but here is how I voted:
- Education
Abolish the Department of Education.
The US Federal Government actually spends more on education
than the nations of the Asian periphery (Japan, Korea, Taiwan,
Singapore), which have led the world in K1-12 educational
attainment from Day One. In fact, compared to these countries
there seems to be an inverse correlation between the amount
of Federal money spent and standardized test results.
The US states, counties and municipalities should finance all K1-12
education. Disaprities in income are largely cancelled by disparities
in the cost of living, so the burden should be nealry equal on a
state-to-state basis.
This does not mean the Fedral government is forbidden to subsidize
education in certain unambiguously useful fields such as Engineering,
but we do not need an entire Federal department to accomplish this.
Maybe a committee or two, that's all.
- Cultural grants
These should be 100% locally funded.
- Earmarks
This is another more dignified-sounding term for "Pork".
I swear to God if any earmark has ever put money in my pocket
I am unaware of it.
Abolish Earmarks/Pork, and start from scratch with a new system
for figuring which bridges really need to be built (or repaired) , and
which we can do the f*** without.
Here are a few more desireable abolitions:
- The Department of HUD
- The Department of Energy
- The Department of Transportation
Reduce budgets and staffs of the above by 90% off the bat, and
then combine the remaining under one authority. We have this thing
called the Department of the Interior: maybe that would serve as a
good umbrella department.
None of this is gonna happen anytime soon, of course.
We have just gotten over 12 or so years of Republican Party
cynical and hypocritical pretention, and now we are going to
have to hope for the best from the Democrats for a looooong
while, and the Democrats, and the threadstarter amply illustrates,
do not even pretend to want to cut anything.
So suprise! It looks like we are screwed. Pass the KY, ladies
and gentlemen, you are gonna need it! But don't count on
any kisses, except on your asses every election cycle.