uh well it's nice to talk with you um
 	
 	
 		
 
 	
 	
 		oh i guess i'll go ahead and start off with uh i think that there's two things that could be done that are procedural to  uh
 		to help the budget the first i believe in would be to give the president a line item veto um
 	
 	
 		i agree with that
 	
 	
 		uh i think that a lot of times the the members of congress
 		uh when they're faced with uh the possibility of having to to cut jobs in their district by because of shutting down a federal project or something just don't have the
 		the willpower on their own to uh
 		to make the tough decisions and sometimes it would be best to give that over to the president who who has overall responsibility for the whole country and can uh
 		i guess be a little bit more insulated from from uh the concerns of one of one district
 	
 	
 		local politics yeah
 		well also too often too the uh individual congressman has the uh especially if they are on on uh some of the committees that put these budgets together
 		uh have the opportunity to slide things in that normally should not have gone in at all and the line yeah and the line item uh veto would be ideal for that i mean to
 	
 	
 		yeah that's exactly right
 		
 
 		yeah one of the the uh there's a bill pending before congress which i'm trying to remember what it's called it's something like the pork buster bill that um if approved would make it uh
 	
 	
 		
 
 	
 	
 		uh uh you wouldn't be able to um
 		put in uh new projects and things in a conference committee or at anytime where they weren't reviewed by the regular committee that has responsibility for that
 		and that's like what you were talking about where they slip things in at the last minute
 	
 	
 		yeah
 	
 	
 		and the conference committee is really the worst place for that to happen
 		uh because no one
 		uh
 		uh has uh it doesn't go back into the regular committee for review after the conference committee it just goes back to the house and the senate for a final up or down vote on the whole thing
 	
 	
 		yeah
 		yeah
 		there's another idea uh uh another uh way where the budget could uh probably benefit and this has to do of course uh it has to do with federal projects
 		too often uh those are uh not there's no uh accountability once the uh projects are awarded to make sure that the quality is done and they end up getting stuck with
 		billions of dollars of overlay
 		or if contracts are put out uh no one uh is responsible or it does does not seem to be
 		for following up that if it goes over budget it it well you know it's set up laissez faire attitude well that's to be expected we just sort of built it in well that shouldn't happen that way
 	
 	
 		i agree
 	
 	
 		and i think i think if there was more attention paid to uh what's being uh spent and more accountability that would help enormous enormously too are
 	
 	
 		um-hum
 	
 	
 		how who or how that would come about i'm not uh sure but that's an an an area that i think needs to be uh looked at
 	
 	
 		yeah it it really sometimes seems that there is there's nobody out there uh watching out for uh for we the people and making sure that the money is spent wisely uh
 		and i don't know that just sort of seems to be unfortunately part of the just how the system uh operates now uh we
 		gee is there anything specific that you think uh uh in the way of federal programs or whatever that would be eliminated to try to cut federal spending
 	
 	
 		well i think uh there could be a lot of consolidation of programs
 		uh looking at of course there they have been a lot of talk to begin with but looking at and the  the military's a big uh
 		area that uh has taken a lot of shots recently but i i do not see the point of having four different services
 		uh i do not see why they could not have one military service
 	
 	
 		and just eliminate all that high level bureaucracy
 	
 	
 		that's right because a lot of the monies are spent uh with insiding within those departments
 	
 	
 		how do you feel about bringing home all of our troops from Europe and the Far East and letting Germany and Japan defend themselves
 	
 	
 		uh
 		basically i'm in i'm in agreement with that
 	
 	
 		yeah
 	
 	
 		uh i would think that there probably needs to be a uh monitor or not a monitor uh
 		or courtesy you know yeah a presence but not a
 	
 	
 		well we'll always have a presence there but we don't we don't need to have half a million troops overseas
 	
 	
 		no well witness witness the the recent Gulf War too even with uh troops all over Europe uh it took several months to gear up
 	
 	
 		that's right
 	
 	
 		and so what was the point of having them to begin with
 	
 	
 		um-hum
 		yeah another area that's that i really think ought to be cut is is direct uh foreign aid