Several things I'd cut before heating assistance

[Alcibiades]

The president has heard of these ideas: they were taken straight off the president's Save Award website.

Allow government travelers to purchase discounted and non-refundable airline tickets

Refundable government airfare prices typically are two to three times higher (usually several hundred dollars more) than non-refundable tickets purchased by the public.

Inasmuch as cancellations and itinerary changes are unusual, it makes more sense to allow government travelers to purchase discounted and non-refundable tickets. Paying the minimal cost for itinerary changes (typically $75) or cancellations, which are relatively rare, far outweighs the justification for purchasing expensive refundable government tickets. Such a policy should result in an enormous savings to the government.

As an incentive to employees, perhaps a gain-sharing option could be applied, similar to that presently used for savings on lodging, in which travelers could recover a portion of the savings over the cost of a refundable government fare ticket


Save $20 billion by eliminating farm subsidies

Save up to $20 billion in US taxpayer money per year by eliminating or reducing farm subsidies. Each year, taxpayers fund billions in handouts to farms, mostly corn farms, which leads to market distortions, higher food prices, and higher fuel costs.

Farm subsidies began in the Depression era to keep farmers from starving and losing their land. Now, 72% of subsidies go to large farm corporations, not to needy family farms.

Cutting costs by reducing paper and getting cheaper plane tickets is all well and good, but to really save significant portions of money, you have to go for the big reasons why we are so deeply in the hole and our economy is still dragging.



Stop encouraging wasteful spending at the end of the fiscal year.

At the end of every fiscal year, emails are sent out advertising that we have money that we "need" to spend. This is ridiculous. Organizations should be able to to carry over money to the next year instead of spending it to prevent a reduction in next years budget. There are several projects that I'm aware of that are facing the chicken and the egg problem. We need to buy a new system that will save xx dollars each year, but since the money can't be incrementally saved to make the purchase, the cost of the system needs to be added on as and unfunded project which takes forever to approve. This equates to extra costs and time for implementation. For every year delayed, that much more money is lost in savings. This problem is probably biggest inefficiency I can think of.

Often times the end of year money is spent to replace items that don't need replaced. I have seen so much perfectly functional office equipment thrown in the trash for not other reason than to make room for the new, but when we need money for operation reasons, the account is empty.

**************
THIS SAME IDEA HAS BEEN POSTED 5997 TIMES. Go to the site and check. Every government employee I have ever known has talked about this. How about giving everyone a small bonus for NOT spending all their money?
**************

Sell Fired Brass Back To Manufacturers

Annual military weapons training at every training installation worldwide produces thousands of tons of expended brass cartridge cases, which are generally sold through DRMO on the open market - a process that is currently hemorrhaging money (estimated at over $20M per year in real dollars for Army alone). Over the past four years China has been one of the largest buyers of this material. Because of its alloy, this brass is mostly used for ammunition, not other purposes. Congress currently receives a periodic report from Defense on Qualified Recycling Program materials - data is easily quantified through database (DENIX). Manufacturers now buy raw materials and create new cartridge cases at ever-increasing cost for materials (market cost of raw brass and zinc almost quadrupled from 2007 - 2008), and would be willing to use fired cartridge brass since it is already alloyed. By returning fired brass to a servicing storage installation or regional installation, it could be inspected, segregated, and consolidated on a national scale and sold to the manufacturer for re-manufacture (smelting, forming, etc.) at a lower cost than raw materials which have not yet been alloyed to make cartridge brass. Suggest mandating return of fired cartridge brass to a local or regional collection facility, and establish a Defense revolving fund that reimburses training installations worldwide for their collection and shipping costs, and reimburses collecting installations for their inspection, storage, and shipping costs from the proceeds of the sale. Reinvest any remaining proceeds of the sale in the ammunition acquisition program to reduce future product procurement costs

Greens Fees
Increase the Greens Fee at all USAF golf courses (to include the down-range courses). This will not lessen the amount of golf played by the members of the USAF but the additional funds will offset any money wasted by it's members spending the their duty hours on the fairway.

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(NOTE: THE GOVERNMENT IS STILL MAINTAINING GOLF COURSES? SERIOUSLY? WE'RE LETTING FOLKS FREEZE BUT NOT TOUCHING THE DOD GOLF COURSE BUDGET?)
*********

Oh, and then there are conferences. The site has 402 suggestions regarding conferences. I know a lot of government employees who have to travel to mandatory conferences and trainings, some of which are redundant, unnecessary and completely useless.

[Alcibiades]

1. Forgot to add URL

http://saveaward2010.ideascale.com/

The ideas submitted by government employees seem to be much better than those coming from the House or the White House at this point.

[Lucian]

2. I have a simple solution:

Get out of Iraq.

That would save BILLIONS.

[Alcibiades]

5. That's been suggested, too

Remarkably, not nearly as many times as the one about the end of year budget spending.

********
Get out of Iraq & Afghanistan

No add'l description needed. This will save taxpayers trillions. I guess ideas saving thousands of lives are not part of this Save Award.

********

Then again, there's also this on how to recoup some of the war expense:

Cache for sale
we find thousands of weapons and ammunition in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. we end up destroying these weapons. Can we sell these weapons to Iraq/Afghanistan government in an effort to contribute to costs.. following sun tzu's advice.. to use the resources available in the area we are in.-paraphrased of course

[alp227]

7. i thought the US already left last year? n/t

[midnight]

8. I second that....

[cutlassmama]

12. +1 We shouldn't have gone there in the first place

[napi21]

3. A silly question, maybe....

Because Congress takes sooo long to pass anything through both houses , would it make sense to cu the heating assistance anyway because by the time the bill actually got to the PRes. desk, we'd be well past the winter season anyway so it wouldn't matter?

[Alcibiades]

6. It's for the 2012 fiscal year

So no, it wouldn't make sense, unless poor elderly folks having to choose between heating and food next winter makes sense, which I don't think it does.

[somone]

4. Get out of Afghanistan and cut off funding to foreign dictators

[doc03]

9. How about subsidies to oil, gas and coal companies? How

about dropping the health insurance for congressmen and let them purchase and pay for it themselves? How about dropping those expensive pensions congress gets and tell them to invest in an IRA with their own money. How about eliminating the COLA congress gives themselves every year?

[Alcibiades]

13. No COLA raise for government employees for the next 2 years

Don't know about Congress, though. Great suggestions, though I doubt they will get much traction: free market Republicans hate socialist government health care, except for themselves and their families, in which case it's A-OK.

[bluerum]

10. Agreed. Shockingly simple no brainers.

[grilled onions]

11. Everyone Is Sacrificing except the Congress population

S.S. has been stagnant for a couple years. Others are losing raises or having to settle for less wages,less benefits. The only group that is still maintaining what they had but still talking sacrifice IS Congress. That would be agreat place to lop off a mere small % of their perks/wages to get them on a closer wave length to OUR sacrificing. The poor should not have to shoulder the burden while Congress maintains their benefits package.

[Alcibiades]

14. Agreed

But don't also forget about corporate America and Wall Street. They are also doing quite well and not sacrificing anything, unless you count their sacrifice of the American middle class.

[Honeycombe8]

15. Maybe they're going to do those things, too. But the pt. is, we're broke.

We're broke, we're broke, we're broke. I don't know why so many people just don't seem to get it.

Being broke is painful. I get NOTHING from the government, except the use of the roadways and other public services that I pay for with my taxes. So cutting back won't affect me particularly, because I don't get anything in particular. But for those who get free money, although the cause is worthy, it will be painful. I do believe the country has to start cutting on the things that aren't absolutely necessary. The poor will STILL get heating assistance. It just won't be as much.

We are closing libraries down and cutting hours. There have been complaints of that. Libraries, to me, represent one of the best things available in our country. But we're broke. We can't afford to pay for everything that we do when times are good.

[PufPuf23]

16. Cuts in programs and legislation regardless of Party or most politicians

are way out of balance and reality for the General Welfare or the long term foreign policy of the USA.

[B Calm]

17. Farm subsidies database website: Check out your state and county

for the biggest recipients: http://farm.ewg.org/

[Alcibiades]

20. Great link!

Bookmarked. Thanks!

[butterfly77]

18. Kicked&Recommended..

[annabanana]

19. k&r . . .n/t