The Elections Are Over and We Want Cuts. Now What?
Now that the 2024 Elections are over, many have sighed in relief. Many have high hopes because they believe good changes are coming. Change for the better is coming, but it might not look like how many are expecting. One of the things that has received a lot of attention is the “Department of Government Efficiency” or D.O.G.E. Despite not being an actual government agency, it has sparked a lot of interest. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have spearheaded this idea to lead in analyzing government efficiency to suggest changes.
The entire thing has ignited a conversation in the country about government waste, fraud, and abuse. This author sees this as a positive thing, but don’t go getting your hopes up yet. This discussion must occur, but everyone must realize that Congress has most of the jurisdiction. After all, Congress funds the alphabet agencies and provides oversight. That’s not to say that the executive branch doesn’t have any ability to make cuts. It does, but I’ll get to that later. There’s something else I need to point out.
The AFGE
Another issue many have not considered is that nearly a million federal employees have collective bargaining agreements with various government agencies. The agreements are legally binding contracts. The government can’t just break these contracts without being sued by the unions.
Did you know that there was a labor union called the American Federation of Government Employees? From the AFGE website:
“AFGE proudly represents 800,000 federal and D.C. government workers across the United States and the world. Members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) can be found in almost every federal agency and every function of government. We work for America.”
It continues:
“AFGE represents over 800,000 workers in nearly every agency of the federal and D.C. governments, spread across over 900 local unions.”
As I stated before, these unions have collective bargaining agreements that are protected by law. To eliminate these jobs permanently Congress must phase them out and not renew the contracts. Can you see Congress doing that? I don’t believe it knows how many government agencies exist and if change ever comes, it won’t be overnight.
A Brief Overview of the Purse
Congress has the power of the purse. This means it controls how much money is authorized for spending. Article I section 7 of the U.S. Constitution says that all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House of Representatives. Congress authorizes spending bills and is supposed to oversee the agencies it funds. History has shown us that it has continually provided oversight to agencies that abuse their power, exceed their authority, and have excessive budgets. This means that Congress is solely responsible for the waste, fraud, and abuse of government spending by allowing this to continue. This indicates that Congress has abused its authority by growing the deep state and exposing American citizens to dangerous debt levels.
How often does Congress pass a budget and do it on time? According to the Pew Research Center:
“The budget resolution, in fact, has been late for 30 of the past 49 fiscal years, counting fiscal 2024. The resolution for fiscal 2021 was delayed the longest. It didn’t pass until February 2021 – more than five months into the fiscal year, and only two months before the next year’s resolution was due (that one was late too).
Increasingly, Congress effectively punts on the budget resolution. In nine of the past 15 years, the House and Senate have instead adopted a variety of legislative substitutes called deeming resolutions. A deeming resolution is used when the two chambers can’t agree on a budget resolution, and typically only binds each chamber’s own appropriators. Born in disagreement, they often foreshadow future spending conflicts between the two chambers.”
Here’s the article if you’d like to read it: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/09/13/congress-has-long-struggled-to-pass-spending-bills-on-time/
As the Pew Research article points out, Congress has a problem with passing budgets. Congress also has a spending problem, borrowing money from the Federal Reserve at unsustainable rates. At the time of my writing this article, the National Debt sits just below $35 Trillion. Check the current number here: US Debt Clock.
Regardless, if the next Congress decides to curtail these trends and enact reform, any future Congress could undo it all. In other words, if the bureaucrats on Capitol Hill decide to take action, a future set of elected empty suits could bring us back to current conditions.
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Presidential Impoundment Authority
The Executive Branch of government is responsible for enforcing the laws passed by Congress. Within this authority, the president can decide how to spend money appropriated in the budget based on how enforcement is executed. Exercising this authority is one of the ways that the executive branch is supposed to act as a check and balance on the legislative branch. In 1974, Congress passed a law that stopped the Executive Branch’s power to withhold funds without Congressional approval. President-elect Trump previously vowed to roll back the provision and he’s made it clear that he is willing to take the issue to court, forcing Congress to sue.
We need this, in my opinion. It is time for each coequal branch to reclaim its power. The executive branch would simply be doing that. Each branch of government has ceded authority to one another for too long. Asserting Constitutional authority is how the three branches of government balance each other. This is a healthy government.
The President has the impoundment authority. The choice to properly wield or not wield their powers has exacerbated our debt problem, led to fraud, waste, and abuse, and has grown the size of the Federal government. I hope that Trump uses his Constitutional authority to rein in spending. According to an article on RollCall.com in 2023, Trump said:
“I will then use the president’s long-recognized impoundment power to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings.”
The only catch is that successors to the presidency can choose when to exercise this authority, choosing to lead us back to where we are now.
D.O.G.E.
I have briefly explained some of the authority that two branches of government (legislative and executive) have regarding spending. These two branches of government share responsibility for the mess in this country. The National Debt recently reached $36 Trillion. It is time to do more than just “service the debt.” America, it is time to devise a plan to pay it off.
I am pleased to see Elon, Vivek, et al. leading the way. D.O.G.E. certainly has potential. It needs to collect data about government agencies, including their functions, budgets, and efficiencies. Collecting and analyzing the information and devising recommendations will take some time. The first hurdle will be gaining access to the data. The second hurdle will be organizing and analyzing it. Presenting recommendations to the Legislative and Executive Branches could result in Congressional or Executive Action. This would be a monumental change. I hope this happens, but my hope is tempered by the fact that Congressional Oversight should have already solved this problem. Instead, the government has grown to an epic size. This wouldn’t have been a problem if the government had already done its job.
D.O.G.E. isn’t an actual government agency but it can investigate government operations from the outside. This is where I believe its strength lies. It can act as an objective third party to see where changes can be made. It can devise strategies for dealing with collective bargaining agreements and develop a plan to phase out government agencies, positions, and functions.
There’s only one problem. There’s nothing in place to stop this from occurring again.
Another Solution
I have outlined how the executive and legislative branches of government create funding, provide oversight, and spend. It was a general outline, but hopefully, you understand the fundamental role of each branch as it relates to spending. I have also explained that they’re the reason why the debt has reached an epic level and how this can occur again. I’ll now outline a needed guardrail. This solution offers a structural framework, within which the president and Congress can operate. Each retains its authority under the U.S. Constitution but must operate within the limits of the framework. The solution is simple, propose Constitutional Amendments that impose
Fiscal Restraints
Term Limits
Limits to the size and scope of government.
The method involves invoking a process specified only in Article V of the United States Constitution, which says:
“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.”
In other words, 34 States can get together to propose amendments to the Constitution but 38 States must ratify them in order to become part of the Constitution. Imagine a convention where commissioners from 34 states write amendments related to the three topics I outlined. Fiscal restraints could mean that Congress must pass a balanced budget on time every year or else the citizens don’t have to pay their taxes, for example. It could also mean that the currency returns to the gold standard, so the government can’t devalue it. Do you realize the impact of those ideas alone being implemented? Congress couldn’t fund the agencies it created to irresponsible levels. Those agencies would be forced to operate within smaller budgets and the president could prioritize the spending. There would be a reduction in waste, fraud, and abuse. A lot of money laundering at taxpayer expense would end. The cash cow would go away and with term limits for Congressmen, they wouldn’t want to stay anyway. A ten-year ban on lobbying after their terms would force them away from the swamp.
Amendments addressing the size and scope of the government could enact language to phase out government agencies and implement term limits on unelected government officials. This would further eliminate the need for high levels of debt and spending, which is our biggest challenge and threat to our livelihoods as citizens. If the republic is to survive, there must be change.
These are just a few ideas for tackling the problem, but the idea here is to place additional limits on government so that it doesn’t revert to reckless behavior.
I just want to save the country I love. I was born in the United States at the end of the 1970’s. I love this country. I don’t want to see it bankrupted by corrupt swamp creatures. One day I went looking for a group of people interested in doing the same thing without resorting to violence. I found an organization called Convention of States. I joined and the rest is history. I’m in this to win. Will you join me?
To join the fight go to https://conventionofstates.com.
‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’
“Live Free, or Die Trying.”
As always, I hope you stay prepared. God Bless and thank you for reading.
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