Question

if you could order a cut of $700 billion in federal spending, which programs would you cut and why would you cut them? Be specific about the programs, the dollar amounts, and your reasoning.

Answer 1

Federal Government of United States every year presents trillion dollars budget and spends million dollars on education, Healthcare, defence, social security, justice, debt repayment, military services and other categories.

The Federal budget for the financial year 2017 outlays $1.03 trillion dollars on Medicare, $1.33 trillion on social security and labour, $543 billion dollars on defence, $266 billion dollars on debt repayment, $94.6 billion dollars on others. Total revenue collection for 2017 amounted to $3.21 trillion dollars and total plan outlays on different programs stood at $3.65 trillion dollars making budgetary deficit of $-433 billion dollars.

Among all programs, Medicare and social security has been flagship programs of all US administration since last four decades. If I could order a cut of $700 billion dollars in total plan outlays of the US budget, I would allow cut on programs such as Medicare, other services specifically military services, farm subsidies and administrative expenses.

I think in the present globalisation age, it is quite imperative that federal government instead of spending huge sum on Medicare, should boost healthcare services including setting up and upgradation of primary and advanced healthcare centres, affordable medical services. The medicare scheme known as Obama care launched during Obama administration ran into controversies. Obama care was launched for the purpose of providing patient care to 15% US population who don’t have access to costly private medical services.

Next program is the military services outside United States. The US government deploys large number of military force outside United States for protection of US interests in different regions. However, spending huge sum on overseas military services could not yield desirable results in regions such as Afghanistan and Middle East where US army suffered heavy casualties in terms of army personnel, financial resources and defence equipment.

The last program in which US administration should cut down expenses is Farm subsidies. Every year US government spends approximately $25 billion dollars on agricultural subsidies to farmers. The basic objective of Farm subsidies is to protect US farmers from cheap agricultural imports from different countries. The amounts of farm subsidies for crops such as wheat, maize and soya are determined on the basis of crop production and market prices of different crop type.

If $700 billion dollars is allowed to be deducted from total budgetary allocations for different programs by the government, then I should suggest cutting around $400 billion dollars for medicare program as the same amount can be spent on social security plans and infrastructure development that will raise standard of living of people. Next, at least $200 billion dollars should be cut from the total outlays for overseas military services. Rather than, US government should engage in building cordial diplomatic relations with different countries that will better protect economic and strategic interests of United States.

Lastly Federal government should cut $100 billion dollars for farm subsidies. Instead of providing agricultural subsidies, farmers should be made economically self-reliant and stronger by ensuring fair crop price system and building advanced marketing centres in the country. This will allow farmers to effectively counter cheap import of agricultural items.