Maastricht Treaty revisions needed?

[Jester]

Can you tell me why we need 737 military bases around the world?

No, but it's patently obvious that they aren't there because some congressman decided they'd like a boost for their constituency... in Korea or Germany. The Pentagon's massive global reach and commitment is a strategic decision that the US has consistently made. I don't agree with it, and I think many of those bases could be shut down in favour of a more multilateral strategy, based more on diplomacy than military force. I don't set the US strategic posture, and neither does your average congressman. But that's not waste - that's a conscious military decision, and its costs are the inevitable consequence.

Then we can begin to dismantle much of the social spending for those who are able to take care of themselves.

Yeah, lots of people have promised this. But there are two problems they invariably run in to. First, the number of people who really don't need these programs but get benefits are dwarfed by the number who do. Second, auditing to sort out the first from the second is a costly and unpopular process. Recouping actual expenditures by cutting back on the undeserving is not likely - if you want to save money, you're going to have to actually scale back benefits, and that's going to hit people who aren't able to "take care of themselves."

Then we can look to consolidating the duplication; at just the federal level we have 342 economic development programs; 130 programs serving the disabled; 130 programs serving at-risk youth; 90 early childhood development programs; 75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities; 72 federal programs dedicated to assuring safe water; 50 homeless assistance programs; 45 federal agencies conducting federal criminal investigations; 40 separate employment and training programs; 28 rural development programs; 27 teen pregnancy programs; 26 small, extraneous K-12 school grant programs; 23 agencies providing aid to the former Soviet republics; 19 programs fighting substance abuse; 17 rural water and waste-water programs in eight agencies; 17 trade agencies monitoring 400 international trade agreements; 12 food safety agencies; 11 principal statistics agencies; and 4 overlapping land management agencies.

I don't know how accurate this copy-paste from the Heritage Foundation is, but boy does it sound impressive! (I know this isn't college, but would you mind actually citing your sources before copying them wholesale?)

Perhaps there is some money to be saved by consolidation. But I doubt it is very much. It sounds ominous to list things like "400 international trade agreements", but I can't imagine how you'd consolidate them, at least without pushing some major global trading pact - they're negotiated with other countries. You could consolidate all the statistical agencies, but to what end? They measure different things for different people - putting them all under the same roof would just be pointless reorganization.

Programs aren't always separate for good reasons, but they often are. Usually, they're just labels for different functions of the same department. The amount of money to be saved here might, generously, amount to a few % of the budget, and could only be saved with a massive and costly auditing and reorganization effort.

Everyone is always in favour of eliminating government waste, and everyone universally fails to do it. The cynic could, I suppose, argue that government simply corrupts everyone it touches before they can affect any real change. I think the answer is simpler: it's an easy political target (who wants waste?), but a very difficult economic one. There is simply not much money to be saved there, and attempts to do so inevitably fall short.

We could slash departments wholesale, that are handled at the state level, such as the department of education, department of agriculture, department of transportation, etc.

Sure, if you want to devolve the overwhelming majority of government functions to the States, you could do that. Is there any evidence whatsoever that they would be accomplished more efficiently there? Or is this just an ideological change? It seems to contradict the logic of your argument above - how are you going to save money by multiplying every department and program by 50? That's a lot of de-consolidation!

-Jester