11 Agencies Trump Slashes In His Budget Proposal
President Donald Trump has just unveiled his first budget. It takes a hatchet to various departments and abolishes a multitude of agencies. While it won’t solve the country’s debt crisis, it is a good step toward eliminating unnecessary agencies and programs.
Here are 11 agencies that Trump slashes in his budget.
1. National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. The Daily Wire has previously reported:
Budget hawks have long called for eliminating the NEA and NEH, as they are both emblematic of unnecessary, wasteful spending of taxpayer money. The federal government doesn’t need to be involved in the arts and humanities, as the $13.1 billion in private funding easily dwarfed the $292 million the government spent on the NEA and NEH in 2011.
The NEA also is a form of corporate welfare, as “one-fifth of direct NEA grants go to multimillion-dollar arts organizations” and provides subsidies toward those who are well-connected with the government rather than on individual merit, resulting in a crowding-out effect, per a 1997 Heritage Foundation report.
The NEA and NEH, like most government agencies, are guilty of spending money on ridiculous initiatives, such as $47,000 on teaching children to laugh and $10,000 for a Zombie In Love children’s musical.
2. Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The CPB is the agency that funds NPR and PBS as well as other stations. The agency costs around $485 million a year; should Trump’s budget pass, the federal funding that CPB would lose could easily be counteracted through private funding.
3. Legal Services Corporation. The LSC is sold as an agency that provides legal services to the poor; however, the Daily Wire has reported that the LSC actually focuses “on lawsuits on behalf of leftist causes” and is ” rife with wasteful spending.” The LSC receives $375 million a year.
4. U.S. Trade and Development Agency. Eliminating the USTDA would result in savings of $594 million over ten years. The program is unnecessary because its function of helping businesses foster trade with other countries is duplicated by several other agencies and programs.
5. Woodrow Wilson International Program for Scholars. Eliminating this program, which provides scholarships in the fields of social sciences and humanities, would save $11 million.
6. Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation. This agency monitors Neighborworks programs that provide affordable housing in various areas. The NRC only consists of a small amount of Neighborworks’ funding – most of which comes from private entities and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) – and Neighborworks’ function is duplicative of other HUD agencies. Therefore, the $175 million that goes toward the NRC is expendable.
7. Denali Commission. The commission was originally formed in 1998 by the late-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who funneled voluminous amounts of earmarks to the commission to provide infrastructure for Native Americans. In 2013, inspector general Mike Marshall recommended that Congress abolish the commission altogether, but Barack Obama utilized the slimmed-down commission to combat climate change; meaning that the commission is useless. Eliminating it would be an easy way to save $14 million.
8. U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. USICH, which costs $4 million, partners with 20 departments and agencies to develop policies to solve homelessness.
9. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. The USCSB investigates chemical accidents and develops preventive measures to avoid them, a function that “overlaps that of other federal agencies, notably the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB),” per Encyclopedia.com. The Encyclopedia article argues that the USCSB is needed for its recommendation of preventive measures, but there’s no reason why the other aforementioned agencies couldn’t pick up the slack should the USCSB’s $11 million be eliminated.
10. Overseas Private Investment Corporation. The OPIC was established by Richard Nixon in 1969 as a means to encourage private investment into developing countries through means like “political risk insurance” and guaranteed loans. But the OPIC is unnecessary because there are private companies that provide these same services. The OPIC has also funneled tax dollars toward projects under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, further bolstering the need for it to be eliminated. Abolishing the OPIC would save $63 million.
11. Institute of Museum and Library Services. This agency provides funding to the country’s museums and libraries; there’s no reason to keep it since it should be left to the states and localities. Its elimination would save $231 million.
