Rightsizing is what the cool kids call it in their desperation to avoid notice, but what the House’s Republican Party’s Freedom Caucus is proposing represents a small, but needed, initial step toward downsizing our bloated Federal bureaucracy. Some of the State Department cuts being proposed include

• State’s US Agency for Global Media would be reduced from $798 million to $734 million
• State’s Democracy Fund and the United States Agency for International Development would be reduced from $355.7 million to $227.2 million
• State’s US Global Health Programs would be reduced from $6.3 billion to $5.7 billion
• State’s Global Environment Facility would be eliminated altogether, cutting $139.5 million

And so on.

In absolute terms, these are, individually, chump change cuts, for all that they represent significant reductions in each agency’s budget. They do, however, add up to $1.2 billion, including other State cuts not listed here, and so are an initial cut of 2% of the $58.5 billion 2022 State budget.

Over at the Energy Department, the Freedom Caucus is proposing elimination of the Aquatic Decarbonization and the Algae-Related Bioenergy Technologies, cutting $80 million from Energy’s 2023 $149 billion budget.

Freedom Caucus is proposing similar reductions for Agriculture.

I don’t often agree with the Freedom Caucus’ “my way or nothing” approach, but on matters regarding our nation’s morbidly obese Federal spending (and a deficit of $1.62 trillion just in the first 10 months of this fiscal year) and our resulting even more dangerously fat national debt, the Republican Party as a whole needs to stand tall on actual cuts.

Even if it means shutting down (some of) the Federal government next fall and winter. And spring. And summer. That, in itself, would result in badly needed spending cuts.