What Is the Best Way to End Federal Overspending?

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been appointed by President-elect Donald Trump to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to help “end federal overspending” by cutting unauthorized expenditures or in unauthorized ways. Soon after Trump’s announcement, a coalition of Republican lawmakers began making plans. According to Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell at The Daily Signal, the coalition acted the day after the appointments of Musk and Ramaswamy. 

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, House Pro-Life Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Chris Smith, Rep. Robert Aderholt, and Rep. Claudia Tenney led a bicameral letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office requesting a report on federal funding for abortion providers between fiscal year 2022 and 2024….

Smith said he hopes the requested report will help Musk and Ramaswamy defund Planned Parenthood….

The coalition of 112 Congress members requests reports on the federal funding that goes to Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates, International Planned Parenthood Federation, MSI Reproductive Choices, federally qualified health centers, and four domestic abortion providers, according to the letter shared with The Daily Signal.

“It is our hope that this report will provide greater insight as Congress considers funding levels and provides increased transparency and openness for our constituencies and the general public,” says the letter signed by 81 House members and 31 senators.

The Government Accountability Office has responded to several congressional requests with prepared reports on federal funding for abortion organizations. The most recent report revealed that the abortion industry had received almost $2 billion in federal taxpayer dollars between fiscal years 2019-2021.

The letter asks for the report to detail Planned Parenthood’s federal obligations, disbursements, and the expenditures of federal funds by each of the organizations; reported obligations, disbursements, and expenditures by program from federal agencies other than the Department of Health and Human Services; the funding sources for federal agencies and programs associated with these federal funds; how these funds were made available; and reported obligations, disbursements, and expenditures for the top 15 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services programs.

This week, an announcement was made that the national debt passed $36 trillion. One way to decrease the spending of the government is to reign in the authorized spending. Musk and Ramaswamy should have prime pickings as they look for ways that the government wastes money.

Post Election Plans

Pollsters have told us for weeks that a great conservative wave of new lawmakers with fresh ideas was about to hit the United States. If the polls prove to be correct – through all the counts, recounts and legal challenges, I hope that the conservatives are ready to meet the challenges facing our nation.

The experts at the Heritage Foundation prepared a list of twenty-three areas of policy that are of concern to Americans. Among their concerns are the following policy areas along with recommendations to solve the problems.

"Federal Spending. Government spending is out of control—so much so that a new political movement, the tea party, has sprung up to rein it in. America has a spending problem, and Heritage has a solution. The majority of our spending growth is on entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid —to say nothing of Obamacare—and Heritage has created a series of recommendations that the new Congress should enact in order to correct the out of control spending that will tack on an additional trillion dollars to our national debt in the next decade.

Health Care. Heritage urges a total and immediate repeal of Obamacare, and this needs to be a top priority for the new Congress. But Congress shouldn’t stop there: Heritage supports free market solutions (link in PDF) as opposed to a big government takeover of one-sixth of the nation’s economy.

Government Regulations. The amount of government regulation in the past year has been unprecedented, costing taxpayers an additional $26.5 billion in 2010 alone. These costs will affect Americans in many ways. It will raise the price of the cars they buy and the food they eat, for example, while destroying an untold number of jobs. Worse, the amount of red tape is set to rise in the coming year. Congress must keep in mind that the more regulations placed on Americans, the more they are restricting their freedoms.

These United States have some definite problems that need solutions. What has been done over the past months and years is not working. The biggest need is to reduce the amount of control that the government has in the lives of individuals. Heritage Foundation is a Washington think tank with the object of preserving the founding principles in the United States. It favors no party, but it works with both parties to solve problems in our nation. I hope our newly elected members of Congress pay attention to the recommendations of the Heritage Foundation.