How to Save $2 Trillion

According to Citizens Against Government Waste, $2 trillion worth of government waste could easily be eliminated over the next five years.

Citizens Against Government Waste has named 557 government programs and subsidies that should be cut or eliminated.  These cuts are named in the organization’s annual publication, “Prime Cuts 2013.”

The linked article names four cuts that nobody — well, hardly anybody — would miss:

Subsidies to the sugar industry.  I saw an article several weeks ago — I forget where — describing how Congress carefully made sure that sugar subsidies wouldn’t suffer any reductions from the sequester cuts.  Sugar subsidies are keeping the price of sugar at around twice the world price.  Pretty cool, huh?  We’re paying higher taxes in order to rip ourselves off whenever we buy junk food.

Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, said:

“It's an old style Soviet command and control program.  By eliminating the sugar program, tax payers could save $1.2 billion in one year and $6 billion over five years.”

Next:  subsidies to the dairy industry.  Tom Schatz said:

“Also an old-fashioned program.  The price of milk is based on the distance from which it’s produced from Eau Claire, Wis.—very old-fashioned way to produce milk. Savings there: $1.1 billion in one year, and $5.7 billion over five years.”

Agricultural subsidies aren’t the only drain on taxpayers.  Citizens Against Government Waste has estimated that somewhere between 55,000 and 77,000 government-owned buildings are sitting vacant and unused.

Also on the chopping block:  the Essential Air Service program which subsidizes small barely-used airports.

Why aren’t our congressional deficit hawks complaining about these wasted billions?  (It was a rhetorical question.)