The White House has kicked off its fifth annual “Save Award” competition where thousands of federal employees submit ideas on how to cut waste from the government.
Last year, Department of Education employee Frederick Winter won. Winter’s idea, which came to him after he turned 65, proposed that all federal employees with transit benefits shift from regular to senior fare as soon as they’re eligible.
Steve Posner, associate director for strategic planning and communications in the Office of Management and Budget, said more than 85,000 ideas have come in from federal employees during the past four years.
“We know these ideas alone won’t solve the nation’s long-term fiscal challenges, but they represent common sense steps to improve government and provide a better value to the American people,” Posner wrote in a July 30 White House blog post.
To submit an idea, click here. Good luck.
2 Comments
Switching to senior fares from regular fares for those who have transit benefits qualified as the winning entry? Really? If saving money is the idea, how about simply eliminating transit benefits? The ultimate benefit is paid in the form of less wear and tear on one’s own car, assuming that the availability of transit even necessitates owning a car.
How about some real initiatives to reap real savings? One idea would be to eliminate in totality the department of energy and move the nuclear-related missions back to DoD. This albatross was created during the disastrous Carter regime with the stated goal of attaining energy independence. How’s that worked? Get rid of this agency.
Another unconstitutional expansion of the federal government also happened during the Carter regime and that is the establishment of the department of education. This is another useless federal bureaucracy that has provided no tangible benefit in terms of improving education at any level. This too, can go away.
The department of homeland security is yet another needless expansion, done as a knee-jerk reaction to the terror attacks on 11 Sep, 2001 under the similarly disastrous regime of Bush II. We have a national guard. DHS is needlessly redundant. Go back to privatized airport screeners and eliminate the needless gate raping of innocent passengers. Start profiling–it works for the Israeli’s and it will work for us.
Close military installations overseas and stateside. The DoD budget can be halved by substantially reducing head count. Of the 800,000 DoD civilians, at least 300,000 can be let go. The size of the active duty force can similarly shrink. There is no need to keep more than 2 aircraft carriers deployed at any one time. The rest can be kept in ready reserve with minimal staffing to maintain the vessels.
These are but a few examples that would provide “real” savings, not the silly little token savings on a benefit that should never have even existed.
Eliminate some congressional and white house staff people and contractor personnel.