Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 10, 1993 TAG: 9303100395
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CALLING ALL DEFICIT-BUSTERS
SINCE PRESIDENT Clinton and the new government-reform czar, Vice President Al Gore Jr., began soliciting ideas for cutting federal spending and waste, telephone lines set up for the purpose have been deluged with calls.To avoid tying up the lines further, we'll offer a few ideas here, in print. Most are gleaned from options outlined by the Congressional Budget Office. The surest things that can be said about them is that they're not an exhaustive list, and each will offend someone.
A
Look first to abusive misuses of taxpayer dollars.
For instance, the Interior Department has subsidized irrigation of farmlands that produce surplus crops such as rice, barley, corn and cotton. At the same time, the Agriculture Department has paid the same farmers hundreds of millions to limit their crop production. Let's stop doing that.
Let's also stop paying $2 billion to $3 billion a year in Medicare and Medicaid for health-care costs that should be covered by private insurers.
Next, move on to traditional targets for budget-cutters: the bureaucracy, the military and pork barrel.
Clinton's plan to freeze federal employees' salaries for a year, and to cut 100,000 jobs, is fine. (Have you heard? Workers in the private sector have endured such indignities for years.)
Welcome, too, is Defense Secretary Les Aspin's proposal to eliminate more military bases than have been slated already for closing. For that matter, $4 billion could be saved annually just by reducing the number of aircraft carrier battle groups from 14 to 10. (Have you heard? The Cold War is over.)
Lyndon Johnson himself asked Congress to eliminate the Rural Electrification Administration. Clinton wants to save $374 million in REA funds over four years. Killing the agency outright would save $3 billion a year. (Have you heard? Most farms are electrified.)
These sorts of savings notwithstanding, you still can't take a serious bite out of the deficit without hitting so-called entitlements. It's a big target: Some $250 billion in entitlement benefits go every year to households with annual incomes above $50,000.
Among options listed by the CBO: Save $5.4 billion a year by taxing 50 percent of Medicare benefits that go to the wealthiest one-quarter of retirees. And: Save $60 billion over 20 years by accelerating the change in the retirement age from 65 to 67. Both proposals make sense.
Other deficit-reducing ideas, equally sensible, would save:
$2.8 billion per year - by requiring allies to pick up 75 percent of the cost of stationing U.S. troops on their soil.
$6 billion a year - by enacting modest changes in farm programs as outlined by the CBO.
$2.2 billion a year - by killing airport subsidies.
$6 billion annually - by limiting the mortgage-interest deduction to $12,000 a year, and eliminating the deduction for second homes.
And this is just a sampling; many more items could be mentioned, each with a constituency prepared to resist spending cuts. This debate over how to reduce the deficit is a healthy thing for the country - assuming a healthy portion of the savings are enacted.