The scheduled implementation of the sequestration spending cuts is a little more than a week away, which has Republicans, Democrats, bureaucrats, special interests, and the media warning that the apocalypse is nigh. Sequestration isn’t the ideal way to cut spending, but it would be a start. And despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the areas of federal spending targeted by sequestration should be cut.
Many of these areas have been covered by Cato’s Downsizing Government website. The following is a “guide” for those who are interested in alternative points of view (and who haven’t already sought refuge in a bunker):
- Why the Department of Defense should be downsized.
- Why unemployment benefits should be cut and the unemployment insurance system reformed.
- Why Head Start and other Department of Health and Human Services subsidy programs should be cut.
- Why subsidized loans from the Small Business Administration should be cut.
- Why federal subsidies to firefighters should be cut.
- Why community development programs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development should be cut.
- Why HUD public housing and rental subsidies should be cut.
- Why federal employee pay should be cut.
- Why the Army Corps of Engineers should be cut.
- Why federal subsidies to state and local government should be cut.
Downsizing discusses other agencies and programs that would be cut (and more), but those are some of the more prominent areas that are being discussed.