So it’s my least favorite time of the year. No, not “How did my beloved Patriots, led by man among men Tom Brady, manage to lose to the chump Giants with 30 seconds left?” OK, it might be that. But it’s also the time of year where, right after paying my taxes, the Federal Government releases their annual budget where I find out how much of their money they’re wasting again.

You often here, “But Kev, without government, we’d be savages in a jungle! Don’t you like courts and roads?” Well, yeah, I do. But first, the most useful things tend to be provided at the local or state level (ah, Principle of Subsidiarity, you are my truest friend). Let’s take a gander at the Federal Budget and see if we can do better.

The budget this year is 3 trillion dollars. In inflation-adjusted dollars, our 1996 budget was 2.2 trillion dollars. Now population has grown since then, but not nearly enough to make up for the substantial growth in government. So I’m fairly convinced that, if Seniors weren’t Starving on the Streets, and Orphans weren’t Forced to Eat Garbage, back then, they won’t be now if we trim the budget a bit.

Of that 3 trillion, almost 300bn goes to debt interest, which we wouldn’t have to pay if earlier generations hadn’t shafted us with the bill. We could pay this off within a generation, as many other countries have done. You should note that, as the deficit grows, the current older generation is sticking our generation with the bill. Hey, if you’re elderly, deficit spending is a credit card you never have to pay off!

The military will suck up almost 800bn next year. I’m fine with a military only four times as strong as China’s, who are next in military spending, so let’s spend 200bn instead of 800bn, and use much of this money to train a true National Guard (i.e., civilians trained to defend the homeland) rather than a backup foreign war fighting base. This change could come over 20 years. You might say, “But Kevin, we barely have enough troops and funds to fight two wars halfway around the world, simultaneously, while also basing over 200,000 troops in places like Japan and the UK, and building completely redundant massive new ships and airplanes.” And I say, exactly.

Various forms of redistribution are, incredibly, 1.5 trn, or half the budget; I’m just counting SocSec, Medicare, Medicaid, and Dept. of Labor outlays like unemployment and welfare (though I’m not including things like Dept. of Housing grants, etc.). I’m more than glad to means test that which is not already means tested, phasing out the current system slowly alongside a phaseout of payroll taxes. Let’s say we cut half of this with means testing, sometime over the next 20 years. (Aside: you might say, as do many Seniors, that the old folks today have paid in their money, so they should get it out. Not true. Your average retiree today gets something like 3 times as much money out of SS as he or she put in. All joking aside, SS and Medicare are funded as a pyramid scheme. It’s absurd.)

Aside from debt, cash redistribution, and the military, the entire federal budget is only 3% of GDP, or 440bn - that’s highways, space shuttles, diplomats, NIH, the Fed, and on and on. Of that, 50bn are Veteran’s Benefits that we’re obligated to provide. Of the other 390bn, let’s cut out a bit of the chaff here and there - we have 17 intelligence agencies and 5 federal bank regulators, for instance - to knock a conservative 10% out of this piece of the budget.

With just a few changes, the federal budget falls from 3 trn to 1.35trn. That is, we could entirely get rid of payroll taxes, and reduce income taxes by a third, and still balance the budget; you’ll note that the current government is 10% over budget even with that money. If you added in a Pigouvian tax on carbon, you would raise enough money to internalize the pollution problem and allow income taxes to be halved.

I’m wholly in favor of government helping the unlucky. I’m wholly in favor of public roads. I even think (unlike many libertarians) that most real government spending on things like NIH, NASA, overseas aid, etc. are worthwhile things that would be difficult to do without government. What I’m not in favor of is a government that serves as a mechanism to shuffle around money from the politically unconnected to the politically connected.

And yet the politicians act like they’re taking a brave stand when they oppose a million dollars in earmark spending somewhere. Get real. Stop wasting our money.