The "You Cut" initiative started by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R, Virginia) over a year ago is a simple idea. It puts various questions to the public on what they think should be eliminated or downsized in an effort to change Washington's "Culture of Spending" into a "Culture of Saving." It was met with mixed reviews at the outset, but quickly gained momentum as time went on, and is now in its second year.
Here's a list of the proposals:
[COLLAPSE="You Cut Phase 1"]Week One: End Duplicative Government Printing
Week Two: End the Presidential Election Fund ($520 Million Savings)
Week Three: Obtain Refund of U.N. Tax Equalization Fund ($180 Million Savings)
H.R. 1 - The Continuing Resolution
Week Four: Terminate the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund (Approximate $1 billion in savings)
Week Five: Reduce DoD printing and reproduction budget (Approximate $180 million in savings)
Week Six: Repeal the $17 Billion "Prevention and Public Health Fund" Created in the 2010 Health Care Law ($17 billion in savings)[/COLLAPSE][COLLAPSE="You Cut Phase 2"]Week One: Terminate U.S. Contributions to the United Nations Population Fund
Week Two: Terminate the Federal Railroad Administration’s Funding of High-Speed Rail Projects
Week Three: Reduce the number of Federal Employees by 10 Percent through attrition
Week Four: Terminate Funding for Comparative Effectiveness at the AHRQ
Week Five: Refocus National Park Service Spending on National Parks
Week Six: Eliminate Cell Phone Subsidies in the Universal Service Fund
Week Seven: Repeal the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Program
Week Eight: Eliminate the Science To Achieve Results Program
Week Nine: Enforce Restrictions Excluding Illegal Aliens From Refundable Tax Credits
Week Ten: Eliminate The Ready To Learn Television Program
Week Eleven: Terminate National Science Foundation Grants for Arctic Research
Week Twelve: Terminate the Weatherization Assistance Program
Week Thirteen: Suspend Federal Land Purchases
Week Fourteen: Terminate HUD's HOPE VI Program
Week Fifteen: Terminate Federal Programs that Pay People to Volunteer[/COLLAPSE]
Here are some of the current items up for vote: (note - the descriptions that follow each proposition have been copied verbatim from the YouCut website, and therefore carries with it the potential for a strong conservative bias.)
Stop rewarding States for recruiting additional Food Stamp recipients
Potential savings: up to $180 million over ten years
The Department of Agriculture's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as the Food Stamp program) pays state governments bonuses for recruiting additional people to sign up for food stamps. Each year, states with the highest percentage of eligible participants enrolled in the program split $12 million in bonus funds. Additionally, the Department awards another $6 million in bonus money to states that are the fastest at signing up new program applicants. As of August, 2011, nearly 46 million Americans were on food stamps, or 15 percent of the population. Benefit costs were over $71 billion between September of 2010 and August of 2011. Program participation has grown steadily since the economic downturn began, and increased by 8 percent in 2011. There is no need to pay states for increasing the number of food stamp recipients they enroll in the program.
Terminate "environmental literacy" programs run by the Forest Service
Potential Savings: up to $50 million over ten years
The Forest Service runs numerous programs aimed at schoolchildren and classroom teachers under the rubric of "environmental literacy" or "conservation education." These programs include such initiatives as "Green Schools" which "empowers students to lead the movement of sustainability and environmental responsibility at school, at home and in their community." While students may benefit from some of the outdoors activities these programs provide, using taxpayer dollars to generate issue-oriented advocacy among school children and college students is inappropriate.
Eliminate production of duplicative (sic) workplace safety training materials
Potential Savings: up to $107 million over ten years
The Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA] provides more than $10 million annually in grants to labor organizations and community groups to produce workplace safety training materials for employees and employers. Under the Susan Harwood Grant program, hundreds of sets of training materials have been developed since 2003 for the construction industry on avoidance of falls, for industries dealing with hazardous chemicals, and for farmworkers on avoiding injuries when working with farm machinery. Many of the annual grants repeat subject matters covered in training materials previously produced by earlier grantees. The repetitive nature of many of the subject matters suggest that the program is failing to widely disseminate products funded by the earlier grants, and instead simply acting as a funding source for grantees.
The Discussion
I'd like to propose we of the Debate Hall tackle these questions, starting with the most recent.
Which (if any) of the three most recent propositions would YOU vote for, and why?
Note: Please refrain from jumping to other items while the discussion is engaged. We will eventually hit them all, hopefully, so be patient. If a specific subset of proposals is waning in discussion we can move on, but this way we can ensure a healthy discussion ensues for each item.
Here's a list of the proposals:
[COLLAPSE="You Cut Phase 1"]Week One: End Duplicative Government Printing
Week Two: End the Presidential Election Fund ($520 Million Savings)
Week Three: Obtain Refund of U.N. Tax Equalization Fund ($180 Million Savings)
H.R. 1 - The Continuing Resolution
Week Four: Terminate the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund (Approximate $1 billion in savings)
Week Five: Reduce DoD printing and reproduction budget (Approximate $180 million in savings)
Week Six: Repeal the $17 Billion "Prevention and Public Health Fund" Created in the 2010 Health Care Law ($17 billion in savings)[/COLLAPSE][COLLAPSE="You Cut Phase 2"]Week One: Terminate U.S. Contributions to the United Nations Population Fund
Week Two: Terminate the Federal Railroad Administration’s Funding of High-Speed Rail Projects
Week Three: Reduce the number of Federal Employees by 10 Percent through attrition
Week Four: Terminate Funding for Comparative Effectiveness at the AHRQ
Week Five: Refocus National Park Service Spending on National Parks
Week Six: Eliminate Cell Phone Subsidies in the Universal Service Fund
Week Seven: Repeal the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Program
Week Eight: Eliminate the Science To Achieve Results Program
Week Nine: Enforce Restrictions Excluding Illegal Aliens From Refundable Tax Credits
Week Ten: Eliminate The Ready To Learn Television Program
Week Eleven: Terminate National Science Foundation Grants for Arctic Research
Week Twelve: Terminate the Weatherization Assistance Program
Week Thirteen: Suspend Federal Land Purchases
Week Fourteen: Terminate HUD's HOPE VI Program
Week Fifteen: Terminate Federal Programs that Pay People to Volunteer[/COLLAPSE]
Here are some of the current items up for vote: (note - the descriptions that follow each proposition have been copied verbatim from the YouCut website, and therefore carries with it the potential for a strong conservative bias.)
Stop rewarding States for recruiting additional Food Stamp recipients
Potential savings: up to $180 million over ten years
The Department of Agriculture's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as the Food Stamp program) pays state governments bonuses for recruiting additional people to sign up for food stamps. Each year, states with the highest percentage of eligible participants enrolled in the program split $12 million in bonus funds. Additionally, the Department awards another $6 million in bonus money to states that are the fastest at signing up new program applicants. As of August, 2011, nearly 46 million Americans were on food stamps, or 15 percent of the population. Benefit costs were over $71 billion between September of 2010 and August of 2011. Program participation has grown steadily since the economic downturn began, and increased by 8 percent in 2011. There is no need to pay states for increasing the number of food stamp recipients they enroll in the program.
Terminate "environmental literacy" programs run by the Forest Service
Potential Savings: up to $50 million over ten years
The Forest Service runs numerous programs aimed at schoolchildren and classroom teachers under the rubric of "environmental literacy" or "conservation education." These programs include such initiatives as "Green Schools" which "empowers students to lead the movement of sustainability and environmental responsibility at school, at home and in their community." While students may benefit from some of the outdoors activities these programs provide, using taxpayer dollars to generate issue-oriented advocacy among school children and college students is inappropriate.
Eliminate production of duplicative (sic) workplace safety training materials
Potential Savings: up to $107 million over ten years
The Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA] provides more than $10 million annually in grants to labor organizations and community groups to produce workplace safety training materials for employees and employers. Under the Susan Harwood Grant program, hundreds of sets of training materials have been developed since 2003 for the construction industry on avoidance of falls, for industries dealing with hazardous chemicals, and for farmworkers on avoiding injuries when working with farm machinery. Many of the annual grants repeat subject matters covered in training materials previously produced by earlier grantees. The repetitive nature of many of the subject matters suggest that the program is failing to widely disseminate products funded by the earlier grants, and instead simply acting as a funding source for grantees.
The Discussion
I'd like to propose we of the Debate Hall tackle these questions, starting with the most recent.
Which (if any) of the three most recent propositions would YOU vote for, and why?
Note: Please refrain from jumping to other items while the discussion is engaged. We will eventually hit them all, hopefully, so be patient. If a specific subset of proposals is waning in discussion we can move on, but this way we can ensure a healthy discussion ensues for each item.