The Cato Institute has launched a new website that includes a roadmap for downsizing the Federal Government.  It’s appropriately called www.downsizinggovernment.org.

They have applied a common sense approach to the Federal budget, and have identified specific areas and programs that should be cut.

Some of their suggestions may seem radical at first blush, but each proposal has been put through the filter of the Constitution, and a lot of the items are not so much cut, but rather shifted to the states, where the programs can be administered locally by people who understand local issues.  (And, I must note, when we’ve started routinely talking about spending TRILLIONS of dollars we don’t have, I think it’s time for radical.)

For instance, they propose eliminating both the Department of Education, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  Both departments exist almost solely for redistributing money from one set of people to another through a complicated set of rules.

Instead of sending a bunch of cash to D.C., and then begging for it back, we could just skip that whole thing and pay the money directly to the state or local governments.

As of today, the project has only completed reviews of 5 federal departments.  There are many more to come.

I look forward to their suggestions, specifically since some of the tougher departments (Homeland Security, Defense) have yet to be reviewed.

Here’s hoping that a nation that was drunk on HopeNChange in 2008 seeks out real reform in 2010 and 2012.  We’re certainly on an unsustainable path, and it’s about time we did something about it.