Politics and religion.

[Lady's Human]

How about we start by getting the Federal Government back into its Constitutional role and start paring away the pieces which aren't authorised by either amendment of the establishment clauses?

[Lady's Human]

Every four years, the DoD goes through a bottom up review of programs called the Quadrennial Defense Review.

There are no sacred cows in the QDR, and if it is used properly, it leads to the elimination of boondoggles such as FCS, Land Warrior, RAH-66, and other vaporware.

The concet of the QDR needs to be put in place for the Federal bureaucracy as a whole. Why on earth we still have the Rural Electrification Commission in place is beyond me (Though it is no longer a separate entity, it has been rolled into the Department of Agriculture).

No program should be exempt, with the exception of those programs/budget items which are required constitutionally.

I really like one of Heinlein's ideas about government. No more automatic extensions for programs. Vote EVERY YEAR to either continue them or not. An added bonus to that would be that Congress would then be so tied up keeping the Government running they wouldn't have time to interfere more in areas where they shouldn't be treading to begin with.