Guidelines for Reducing Wasteful Spending


In 2003 the Heritage Foundation published a great analysis on reducing wasteful government spending. Here are some reasonable, much needed guidelines included in the analysis that Washington hasn't heeded the last several years, but needs to now as much as ever. The summary is posted below but read the entire report here for detailed analysis of how the below guidelines would drastically curtail wasteful spending.

Ten Guidelines for Reducing Wasteful Government Spending

1. Build a constituency for limited government and lower taxes
2. Turn local programs back to the states
3. Privatize activities that could be performed better by the private sector
4. Terminate irrelevant programs and reform wasteful programs
5. Terminate corporate welfare and other mistargeted programs
6. Consolidate duplicative and contradictory programs
7. Convert several remaining programs into vouchers
8. Terminate programs rather than trimming them or phasing them out
9. Utilize the "ideas industry" for specific proposals
10. Remove procedural barriers to saving taxpayer dollars