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USDA

Ideas contributed by Community Member

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  Increasing Trade, Exports, and Overall Competitiveness »

  New Tariff

  We should institute a tariff for each country that exports goods to our country. The tariff would be a percentage of the value of goods imported and would be calculated on the percentage of the difference between what the avg salary is for a particular industry and our minimum wage. So if China thinks $1/hour wage is good in the shoe industry, then we would add a tariff equal to 86% of the value of the goods coming ...more »

  We should institute a tariff for each country that exports goods to our country.

  The tariff would be a percentage of the value of goods imported and would be calculated on the percentage of the difference between what the avg salary is for a particular industry and our minimum wage.

  So if China thinks $1/hour wage is good in the shoe industry, then we would add a tariff equal to 86% of the value of the goods coming into the country. ($7.25-$1)/$7.25=86%. (assuming $7.25 US min wage)

  So the pair of shoes which may cost them $10 to make would have a tariff of $8.60 added to them. If the US company could make shoes for less than $18.60, it might keep jobs here.

  Of course China would add a tariff to our goods, but what do they buy from us other than debt?

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  4 comments for Idea: New Tariff

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  STOP DESIGNER MONEY

  How much does it cost to stamp quarters with the state represenatations on it.

  Don't get me wrong, I like looking at them as much as anyone else, but how much does it cost to design a quarter for each state and then create a stamping dye for each type of quarter?

  Maybe not much, I don't know. But if it does, then why do it? Keep the old eagle design and leave it.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  83 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  GET RID OF GSA AS A LEASING AGENT

  This old dinosaur of an agency has outlived its usefullness. It provides terrible customer service and they charge a large fee. Let them compete with the private sector. When we were allowed to get our own leases, we could do so quickly and usually cheaper than having GSA get in the way.

  6 comments for Idea: GET RID OF GSA AS A LEASING AGENT

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  21 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  FREQUENT FLYER MILES

  If you travel on government business, then the frequent flyer miles should go into a pool so others can get free flights for government travel.

  It used to be you couldn't earn these miles when traveling for the government. This should be brought back. You won't see as much travel going on I suspect.

  2 comments for Idea: FREQUENT FLYER MILES

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  37 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  LIMIT BLACKBERRIES/CELL PHONES

  It costs abouat $50 per month for cell phone service and another $50-60 per month for email on a blackberry. So why does everyone think they need one?

  I know of GS-6 clerical staff who have these but I can't figure out for what reason. Their job is to answer the phone so they should be by a land line phone all day. They don't need a cell phone.

  5 comments for Idea: LIMIT BLACKBERRIES/CELL PHONES

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  13 votes

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  Increasing Trade, Exports, and Overall Competitiveness »

  HELP INVENTORS WITH THE COST OF PATENTS

  The Patent office does a good job, but it can be expensive to patent an idea. Many people have good ideas, but don't follow through with them because of the expense. The Patent office should allow each inventor to have their first patent done free. This way new ideas would be able to come to fruition and this would lead to new products being developed and ultimately more jobs being developed.

  2 comments for Idea: HELP INVENTORS WITH THE COST OF PATENTS

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  25 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  BUILD INCINERATORS AND PRODUCE ELECTRICITY

  Instead of dumping millions of tons of garbage into landfills, why not burn it in incinerators? I used to live in a county that not only was able to eliminate landfills, but the incinerator produced electricity as well. It had the ability to scrub out toxins so it wasn't polluting the air.

  2 comments for Idea: BUILD INCINERATORS AND PRODUCE ELECTRICITY

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  23 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  AGRESSIVELY RESEARCH EEO COMPLAINTS FOR FRAUD

  Too many times, the government would rather settle with a disgruntled employee instead of aggresively investigating the complaint. In some instances, employees are making complaints at each new office they go to. It's fraudulent but the government tends to settle to get rid of the complaint. I have heard rumors that some employees are getting away with hundreds of thousands of dollars only to go to a new office and ...more »

  Too many times, the government would rather settle with a disgruntled employee instead of aggresively investigating the complaint. In some instances, employees are making complaints at each new office they go to. It's fraudulent but the government tends to settle to get rid of the complaint. I have heard rumors that some employees are getting away with hundreds of thousands of dollars only to go to a new office and then make a new claim.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  42 votes

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  FORBID UNION OFFICIALS ABUSE OF OVERTIME

  Union officials should not be allowed to work on union issues during their normal work hours and then schedule themselves for overtime to do their regular work.

  3 comments for Idea: FORBID UNION OFFICIALS ABUSE OF OVERTIME

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  14 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  OFFSET WAR EXPENSES WITH OIL

  If the American taxpayer is going to be asked to foot the bill when a war breaks out to save a country with oil, we should at least be able to recoup our expenses by tapping into that country's oil supplies up to the amount of the cost of the military action. We could use the oil as payment from the country and save it in our reserves.

  We wouldn't be taking anything other than a reimbursement of our costs.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  18 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  SET COPIERS TO DEFAULT TO 2-SIDED COPIES

  You'd be surprised how much your paper costs go down by copying on both sides.

  3 comments for Idea: SET COPIERS TO DEFAULT TO 2-SIDED COPIES

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  14 votes

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  BUY RECONDITIONED OFFICE FURNITURE

  When moving into another building or office space, look for reconditioned office furniture if you need furniture. Some of it looks new and comes in all types of styles and colors.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  IT STAFF NEEDS A REALITY CHECK

  Instead of mailing out hardcopy forms, put them on the internet or intranet. Our IT staff spent $2.07 to mail out help documents on our new email system. So they mailed them to our house and asked us to bring them back to work. Does that make sense? It turns out the stuff they mailed out is already outdated. Why not just put a link on a website and let us go there instead of wasting postage on something we can't use? ...more »

  Instead of mailing out hardcopy forms, put them on the internet or intranet.

  Our IT staff spent $2.07 to mail out help documents on our new email system.

  So they mailed them to our house and asked us to bring them back to work. Does that make sense?

  It turns out the stuff they mailed out is already outdated. Why not just put a link on a website and let us go there instead of wasting postage on something we can't use?

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  LEAD BY EXAMPLE

  If top management wants to see change, then they need to set the example themselves. Whether it be setting limits on awards, traveling, etc.

  1 comment for Idea: LEAD BY EXAMPLE

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  148 votes

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  SELF + ONE

  This option needs to be made available to federal employee health insurance. It's available now for vision and dental so why not for health?

  It would lower the cost to employees and ultimately the government.

  6 comments for Idea: SELF + ONE

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  8 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  MILITARY RESERVES?

  It's obvious to all but the most oblivious person that the budget problem is not going to be resolved until someone gets a handle on military spending. There is a guy in my office who is in the Air Force Reserves (it may be called something else) who says he will never be called into active duty, but yet takes weeks off of work for training, and only works a weekend here and there. He is in medical administration. ...more »

  It's obvious to all but the most oblivious person that the budget problem is not going to be resolved until someone gets a handle on military spending.

  There is a guy in my office who is in the Air Force Reserves (it may be called something else) who says he will never be called into active duty, but yet takes weeks off of work for training, and only works a weekend here and there. He is in medical administration.

  Then he gets sent to Hawaii to help out people on meth who have teeth problems as an excercise.

  So why are these units in existence if they are never going to be called into actual service.

  They should be disbanded. They aren't serving any purpose other than costing the taxpayers money in time, benefits, and of course, those perks they get.

  Either put them into real military service or get rid of them.

  Now I'm ready to take nasty comments.

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  5 comments for Idea: MILITARY RESERVES?

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  38 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  MANDATORY TRAVEL REDUCTION

  Cut travel by 20% for each Department. We are doing that now. It's keeping our managers in the office and making them more accessible.

  We are using webinars, teleconferncing, and videoconferencing instead of traveling.

  We can save large sums of money this way.

  5 comments for Idea: MANDATORY TRAVEL REDUCTION

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  33 votes

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  Increasing Trade, Exports, and Overall Competitiveness »

  Eliminate duplicate systems

  Our agency is finally going to a modern accounting system, yet they still plan to use a system to do financial reporting even though the new one can do the same thing. The old reporting system never worked correctly and was so bad we couldn't use it to close out the fiscal year. Yet they still want to keep it as it was a pet project of one of the senior managers. They could get rid of the purchasing system also as ...more »

  Our agency is finally going to a modern accounting system, yet they still plan to use a system to do financial reporting even though the new one can do the same thing.

  The old reporting system never worked correctly and was so bad we couldn't use it to close out the fiscal year.

  Yet they still want to keep it as it was a pet project of one of the senior managers.

  They could get rid of the purchasing system also as the new system has that too, but no one wants to change.

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  1 comment for Idea: Eliminate duplicate systems

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  CONSOLIDATE GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS

  There are too many government buildings being underutilized or sitting vacant.

  Have a garage sale...literally.

  3 comments for Idea: CONSOLIDATE GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  23 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  KEEP YOUR COMPUTER

  I'd say the vast majority of federal employees use their computers for email and MS applications such as Word or Excel. Extend the life cycle of computer replacements from 3 years to 4 or 5 years. My home computer is 7 years old and still works fine. One arguement I get from our IT people is that the warranties run out after 3 years. So what? If it still works then still use it, if it doesn't then replace it. ...more »

  I'd say the vast majority of federal employees use their computers for email and MS applications such as Word or Excel.

  Extend the life cycle of computer replacements from 3 years to 4 or 5 years. My home computer is 7 years old and still works fine.

  One arguement I get from our IT people is that the warranties run out after 3 years. So what? If it still works then still use it, if it doesn't then replace it.

  Just a thought.

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  9 comments for Idea: KEEP YOUR COMPUTER

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  12 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  GOV FLEET DATABASE

  Before our agency buys a new vehicle, we check our database to see if there are any that can be moved internally. It's much cheaper to move a vehicle on a semi-truck than buying a new one.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  KEEP YOUR CARS

  GSA standards must be based on 1970's data when it comes to turning leased vehicles back to GSA. I think it is around 50,000 or 60,000 miles. They claim their resell value is better.

  Vehicles these days last more than 100,000 miles and don't require as much maintenance other than oil, and tires.

  GSA needs to upgrade their requirements for turning back perfectly good vehicles.

  1 comment for Idea: KEEP YOUR CARS

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  127 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  REMOVE THE INCOME LEVEL CAP ON SOCIAL SECURITY TAXES

  Most people make less than the maximum amount that can be taxed for social security. There should be no maximum salary limit on how much can be taxed for SS.

  The limits on social security benefits would have to stay the same or no benefit would result.

  5 comments for Idea: REMOVE THE INCOME LEVEL CAP ON SOCIAL SECURITY TAXES

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  437 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  CONGRESS SHOULD HAVE SAME BENEFITS AS REG FEDS

  Congress and their staffs should be subjected to the same benefits as regular feds.

  1. FERS

  2. Paying health insurance.

  19 comments for Idea: CONGRESS SHOULD HAVE SAME BENEFITS AS REG FEDS

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  22 votes

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  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  LIMIT HEALTH CARE PREMIUM INCREASES

  Tell insurance companies they can't charge more than the % of pay increases for civilian government workers. With the number of customers the government has, it should have some buying power behind it. This would save the government money by just keeping future premiums down to this year's level. Why should insurance companies get increases when government workers salaries are frozen?

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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