July 15, 2011 4:06PM 

# This Week in Government Failure 

By [Tad DeHaven](https://www.cato.org/people/tad-dehaven) 

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Over at [Downsizing the Federal Government](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/), we focused on the following issues this past week:

- People here in Washington are now considering [military spending cuts](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/congresss-mood-military-spending) that they thought strategically unwise and politically impossible just a few years ago. And conservatives are joining in.
- [Federally funded spaceflight](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/space-program-biggest-bridge-nowhere) is the quintessential neoconservative project: a giant, wasteful crusade designed to fill Americans’ supposedly empty lives with meaning.
- The Obama administration wants to send [bureaucrats from federal agencies](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/obama-administrations-latest-bad-idea) that are notorious for wasting other people’s money to help local bureaucrats do a more “efficient” job of spending other people’s money.
- President Obama’s Fiscal Commission handed Republicans [ready-made spending cuts](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/mcconnell%E2%80%99s-cave-and-boehner%E2%80%99s-opportunity) on a silver platter — Republicans will never get better political cover for insisting on spending cuts than now.
- [$500 billion in cuts](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/debt-limit-deal-500-billion-cuts-option) and a $500 billion debt increase would certainly be better than Senator McConnell’s chicken-out plan.

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##### Related Tags 

[Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) 

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