March 4, 2011 3:42PM # This Week in Government Failure By [Tad DeHaven](https://www.cato.org/people/tad-dehaven) --- SHARE Over at [Downsizing the Federal Government](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/), we focused on the following issues this week: - Block-granting [Medicaid](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/medicaid-block-grants) would be a good short-term reform to get the program’s ballooning spending under control. - Policymakers who are concerned with [bureaucratic duplication and waste](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/gao-report-duplicative-programs) should focus their efforts on limiting the government’s capacity to spend. - [Federal spending would still increase](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/spending-still-increases-with-gop-cuts) in fiscal 2011 if Republicans get the $61 billion in funding cuts they’re seeking. - The solution to a lot of the [problems caused by farm subsidies](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/rearranging-chairs-farmhouse-porch) lies not in changing the direction of the programs, but in abolishing them. - “[Other mandatory” programs](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/spending-growth-mandatory-programs) are often forgotten in the debate over how to rein in our extraordinary deficits and mounting debt. That needs to change. Follow Downsizing the Federal Government on Twitter ([@DownsizeTheFeds](http://twitter.com/DownsizeTheFeds)) and connect with us [on Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/pages/Downsizing-the-Federal-Government/26635669039). ##### Related Tags [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).