i wouldnt actually mind seeing yall do a more comprehensive budget slashing plan. i like what you have so far :)

Thanks for voting against my wishes and NOT EVEN responding to emails or letters i sent to you mr rankin. your my hero!

Off the top of our heads? We’d close USC-Salk, USC-Union and another ten higher ed campuses.

That’s at least $20 million savings before we moved to cutting higher ed across the board by $50 million, since they’re doing “economic development” work that has nothing to do with their core instructional missions.

That’s $70 million right there.

Next, we’d save $5 million by passing the Education Opportunity Act, and another $20-30 million by school district consolidation and education funding reform.

After that, we’d privatize our bus fleet – saving millions by releasing districts from state-mandated bus size, frame and horsepower requirements and letting districts determine what buses best suited their geography and route requirements.

Also, K-12 funding would be slashed by $800 million using a weighted formula based on the exact amount these districts have sitting in their bank accounts. Local districts would then be instructed to carry-forward no more than 5% of their total budgets moving forward.

We would also get rid of our Education Oversight Commission and replace it with an independently-administered diagnostic test. Seriously – they can’t walk and chew gum at the same time over at that worthless agency, so it stands that we shouldn’t be paying them millions to put out report cards three months late.

Oh, we would also immediately get rid of the Sea Grant Consortium, the Minority Affairs Commission, the Secretary of State’s office and any money going to libraries and museums.

Also gone? Any Hunley money or Confederate Relic Room money.

Clemson PSA? Gone. We don’t need to pay to teach people how to plant flowers in any economy.

We would also change the retirement age from 28 to 30 years, and dramatically scale back eligibility (i.e. no more SCASA employees getting state-sponsored health care).

We would immediately fire half of the educrats earning $50,000 or more at the State Department of Education. God knows they won’t be missed.

We would immediately restructure our health care, law enforcement and natural resource agencies for a total annual savings of at least $15-20 million. And we wouldn’t spend new money to create a legislatively-controlled police force.

Taxpayer-funded lobbyists? Gone – that’s another $3 million.

Independent PR consultants and marketing firms (a la Chernoff Silver or Palladian Group)? G-O-N-E. Untold millions saved.

Government-sponsored TV commercials? G-O-N-E. Hundreds of thousands saved.

We would save millions more by reforming Medicaid eligibility and ramping up fraud enforcement.

We would eliminate the $3 million going to senior center renovations – projects that have already been completed and yet the money is still being funneled there so Andre Bauer can run for governor.

Furthermore, we would conduct an audit of the entire $7 billion in “other funds,” which nobody has looked at in decades.

If specific recommendations weren’t provided to us within three months, we would cut $1 billion off the top of ALL of these other funds via a “fee rebate” mechanism.

Long story short, we would fund prisons, cops, roads, bridges and schools/ universities at a responsible level.

Last time we checked, that’s what government is supposed to do.

And seriously dude, that’s just off the top of our heads – without even looking.

If you want us to undertake a more comprehensive review, just say the word.

-FITS

“Technical points” (?) Heck, the “alternative budget” was nothing but an illegal shell game spreading around federal funds into areas the money could not be spent on.

Why don’t you tell us what you’d specifically cut? I know, I know, “waste”, a term Repugnants can never define. Or, we’ll have examples totalling 0.001 of the budget and a loud, “I told you so”

Thank goodness your party’s shrinking tent means you’ll never see a Repugnant controlled Congress in your life-time.