WRITE OF CENTER
We have a federal government that is far too large; we cannot afford it. That’s the big picture that Americans, especially taxpayers, had in mind by electing new leadership in Washington. Republicans are leaning into the challenge, and it’s a monster.
I spent a career in semiconductor manufacturing. It’s an intensely competitive and risky business. If companies get it right, they get rich. Central to their business plan is cost management. Those companies have a culture of cost reduction; costs must continuously be reduced. Every quarter, every year, costs must come down. If companies don’t accomplish that, they are out of business.
That type of intensity and urgency is needed to tame the beast in Washington — that’s the big picture.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) was established in 1862; it had a commissioner and nine employees. In that era, more than half of all Americans worked on farms. The USDA now has 100,000 employees, although less than 2% of Americans work on farms today.
Its budget is about a quarter of a trillion dollars. A congressman told me of a meeting in his office, with four USDA employees; none of them had any farm experience.
The new Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, is a Texan. She is a native of Glen Rose, and holds an agriculture degree from Texas A&M. She calls herself a true believer in trimming government bureaucracy, in downsizing the bloated federal government.
She is on a mission. On her first day in office, she terminated 78 contracts for, among other things, “diversity dialogue workshops,” a “Brazilian forest and gender consultant,” and a “women and forest carbon initiative mentorship program.” That’s $132 million saved, just like that.
But the big money in USDA is in food stamps, which is more than half of the total budget. To be sure, we must continue to provide for those families in need. At the same time, Rollins is working to reduce fraud and establish stricter work requirements for food stamp recipients.
She has also allowed three states to quickly change the rules about what food stamps will cover. Those states now have excluded soft drinks and sugary foods from he program.
Incredibly, those items currently account for 14% of food stamp cost. It will be an interesting case study for the rest of America, perhaps for future adoption nationwide.
The EPA is now headed by Lee Zeldin. He is leading a comprehensive effort to deregulate American environmental policies, with 31 actions initiated so far. They involve power plants, the oil-and-gas industry, vehicles and wastewater. Standards for greenhouse-gas emissions are being reviewed as well.
Last month, Zeldin said, “Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen. We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate-change religion.” The goal is to lower costs for Americans by making it more affordable to buy a car, heat houses and operate businesses. Of course, it greatly benefits our Texas energy economy.
The new Secretary of Education is Linda McMahon. She inherited a mess. Under the Biden administration, federal student-loan debt increased by more than $60 billion a year. And during those four years, that administration manipulated repayment plans and forgiveness policies until only 38% of student loans are now being repaid.
McMahon has conformed repayment options to federal court decisions, including the United States Supreme Court ruling. No more zero-interest, zero-accountability terms for student borrowers. Going forward, about 1.8 million borrowers will be back on repayment plans.
And this is not because the new administration wants to be mean to borrowers. They simply believe, and we support, that borrowing money and failing to pay it back is not a victimless crime. In other words, debt doesn’t go away, it just gets transferred to others.
There are many more examples, all part of the big picture. The federal government is broke. It is too large for the taxpayers to carry any more. It must be downsized so that it can provide for defense and security of the American people.
Let’s not argue about who created this mess; let’s get on with the urgent business of cleaning it up.
Scott S. Kramer is former Chairman of the Kendall County Republican Party.
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