Finding common ground on U.S. fiscal problems

I received this email from the National Taxpayers Union about a joint effort with U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, where they announce their joint effort to find common ground in addressing the nation's fiscal issues. NTU is a conservative group and U.S. PIRG is a liberal group - but they agree on numerous ideas to cut spending. Below is the email with links to their report. I hope you'll read it and support their efforts to help put our nation back on track when it comes to federal government spending.

NTU joined with the liberal group U.S. PIRG to release a list of $600 billion worth of specific federal spending reductions. It is available online at www.ntu.org/commonground. It can also be found on our blog here: http://www.ntu.org/governmentbytes/ntu-joins-with-liberal-group.html.

With all the talk about debt and deficits, we thought it would be useful to reach across the ideological divide to find spending cuts that the left and right can agree upon. We saw an opportunity to put together a true left-right coalition in order to begin the conversation about the difficult choices we’ll have to make as a nation.

The U.S. PIRG and NTU study identifies 30 specific, actionable items to cut in federal spending, including:

* $62 billion in savings by eliminating wasteful subsidies to farmers and large corporations.
* $354 billion in savings from reforming inefficient contract and acquisition procedures.
* $77 billion in savings by improving execution of existing government programs as well as eliminating unneeded programs.
* $108 billion in savings from ending low-priority or unnecessary weapons systems, along with rightsizing other programs.

We will be submitting this list to the President’s Fiscal Commission for consideration, as serious reductions in spending will no doubt play a large role in their report. Also, keep an eye out for post-election efforts we’ll be engaging in to further raise the profile.