Outline
The federal budget deficit is on the highest mark ever. This calls for tough choices that will involve cutting down the budget expenditures as well as the adoption of tough austere measures to curb the wastage.
The recommended work efforts of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)on a budget regarding the process of budget making are listed below. The CBO gives advice on array of the policy options in the annual budget is to provide solutions on how to save through thrift use of resources.
It is said that most of the time, the recommendations they give are ignored. A number of organizations have come up in a bid to put pressure on the government to adopt austere measures in order to check the budget gap before it gets out of control. Indeed it is the responsibility of every citizen to check on how the Federal government spends their hard-earned taxes.
Based on the aforementioned, it is clear that some items should be cut from the federal government Budget. The options will cover single items picked from four broad areas in the federal budget, where there is evidence of waste.
Options
- The federal government spent over $3 billion to re-sand the beaches. The project dubbed “re-nourishment” is meant to replenish the beach with sand in order to attract more tourists.
However, according to the experts from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the exercise is futile because the seawater will wash it back to the sea as easily as the original beach sands (Gray 2012, p 271). - Systematic plundering of over $20.8 billion in Iraq aid. (Reidl 2009)
After the invasion, the government embarked on massive projects to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraqi, But it’s now being revealed that billions of dollars earmarked for reconstruction projects in Iraq were either wasted or stolen through well-devised fraud schemes. - More than 50,000O federal homes are vacant. (Reidl 2009)
Due to the economic slowdown that has led to the slump in the housing market, which in turn led to 50,000 houses being unoccupied. This has lead to loss of billions of tax payer’s money. - Over $146 million is spent annually in-flight upgrades because federal government employees choose to exploit weaknesses in the control system to avoid flying in coach. If the officials fly not the first class but more scrutinized business class, it will result in five times less (Reidl 2009)
Reference List
Reidl, Brian. The Heritage Foundation. 2009. Web.
Gray, Jim. Focus: Arrogance and Greed America’s Cancer. New York: AuthorHouse, 2012.