YouCut ... the Republican leadership apparently want to hear our ideas.

[mwooldri]

http://republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut

I entered an idea, let's start with cutting Congress.

e.g. a 10% paycut across the board for all 485 members of Congress, Congressmembers have to pay the government's portion of their healthcare costs and future members of Congress are not entitled to pay into the government retirement plan (but pay social security like everyone else).

I'd also like to see how much they claim for expenses too.

That would cut about $20 million that year, I believe.

[shraby]

1. In addition to their salary, they all probably get what's called

per diem also. That's to help with expenses of working away from home.

[Angry Dragon]

6. I did google and cameup with this

http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/congress-pockets-left-over-per-diem-money-and-calls-it-nickels-and-dimes/

The article gets better as you read

[mwooldri]

8. Excellent!

Reform the "Per Diem" system, and make it fully accountable.

Incur the expense, then claim for it afterwards. I honestly didn't know that members of Congress get paid up front for trips etc.

I want to see things at the RECEIPT level.

[Odin2005]

2. I say we cut off their heads.

[Bucky]

3. Here's one of their suggested cuts: "Unnecessary Congressional Printing $35m"

Or, as the website puts it:

Eliminate Unnecessary Congressional Printing
Potential savings of $35 million + over ten years
Whenever a Member of Congress introduces a bill or resolution, the Government Printing Office prints 200 paper copies. In the last Congress, Members introduced 14,042 bills and resolutions. That works out to 2.8 million paper copies and with all the bills available online, many of these paper copies are simply thrown away. This year Congress will spend approximately $7 million printing bills and resolutions. By eliminating the mandatory printing of every introduced bill, and instead using technology to ensure that bills are available online for anyone to examine, we can achieve significant savings to taxpayers, while still ensuring accountable and open government.

I don't exactly know what "Potential savings of $35 million + over ten years" means, but I suspect the "+" is pointless there and their #1 suggestion for cutting the trillion dollar debt involves a whopping 3.5 million dollars a year. Mission accomplished, asshats.

[GoCubsGo]

4. Got to love their nickle-and-dime suggestions.

The things they suggest are peanuts. What a joke! Let's get to the red meat, you phony-baloney hypocrites. Let's start with the BILLIONS that are wasted in the Defense Department, instead of the chump change cuts you want us to vote on.

[mwooldri]

7. Certain Senators could begin easily.

Naming no names, the D Senator in my State deemed email as being appropriate. The R Senator believed my email warranted an actual paper letter or four.

I don't know how much unnecessary Congressional Printing it would save, but would save Congressional Postage and Congressional Staff labour costs too.

[AlabamaLibrul]

5. I said end the fucking wars, obviously.

Then they can print all the pages they want.

35m over ten years... what a fucking joke.

[mwooldri]

9. Ending the wars would be good.

Also figuring out how to turn a war machine into a peace machine. Problem is there's an awful lot of people in the military and an awful lot of people dependent on the military for their income. There would have to be some sort of productive positive replacement. However a Department of Peace doesn't look like it's going to become reality anytime soon.

Otherwise if poorly planned we'd have a lot of ex military going to be treated "just as well" as our present veterans (sarcasm tag intended but not required).