Good-bye, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I will truly miss you. By closing you down, I am forced to give up hope that a Star Trek future lies before us. I am giving up hope that American ideals will guide some sort of United Federation of Planets. I am giving up hope for peace on Earth.

It takes real wealth, to maintain a space program, and the United States is in debt. We have no wealth to call upon. Our savings rate, which is the relationship of people's incomes with the amount of money that they've got in the bank, is negative. That means that, on average, not only do Americans have nothing in the bank for a rainy day, they are borrowing money, every month, just to put food on the table.

I remember when political debates always included the sentiment that, "We're the richest nation on earth! Surely, we can afford...[insert your favorite massively-expensive spending program, here]." If those days aren't gone, they should be. America is in debt to the tune of $8.5 trillion, and the head of the General Accountability Office is saying that the size of that debt will go up by FIVE to EIGHT times, in the next 20 - 30 years. Heck, we had to borrow $620 billion, last year, just so the Government could make ends meet.

I've taken on this project, to balance the Federal budget. That means I've got to slice $620 billion from that budget, leaving the Federal Government only a bit more than $2 TRILLION to run the country with. I've already closed down the National Institutes of Health, the Pell grants program, and the Department of Agriculture. NASA is the next to go. I need it's budget of $16.3 billion, in order to help plug the hole in our Federal finances.

No more International Space Station. No more trips to Mars. No more Space Shuttle. No more military satellites monitoring the surface of the globe. No more GPS satellites that allow your cell phone to give you directions to your next destination. No more XM radio satellites. At least, if those satellites ARE going to be maintained, it will be someone other than NASA who does the job.

It's almost funny, in some sick kind of way. I'm practically weeping, as I lift up my budget axe, preparing to chop off another limb of the Executive Branch of Government. Still, I take the swing. I have to. If I don't, the fate the country faces will be worse than you can imagine. The Depression of the last century will be nothing, compared with the suffering that will be visited upon the United States, if we don't get our financial house in order. "Boo hoo...," I moan. "Chop!" goes the axe.

NASA is history. That's $16.3 billion saved. $468.2 billion left to go. "Next!"

Did I say that budget-cutting is grueling? It is horrifying work. I've gone through the 2007 budget, looking for places to cut programs. What I've found is that, in order to cut the budget by $620 billion, I'm pretty much going to have to close down the entire Executive Branch.

Even for me, who believes that the Executive Branch is extremely bloated, the idea of closing down Agencies and Departments upon which millions of people rely is terrifying. But the choice I'm facing is, either to do that, or to continue to borrow money, adding to a debt that, already, cannot be repaid without simply printing up more money.

Do you know what will happen, if the Government just prints up more money, to pay the debt? All of these extra billions of dollars will flood through the economy, causing prices to rise for EVERYTHING. If you're lucky enough to have money in the bank, it will lose an incredible part of its value. If, that is, it continues to be worth anything at all. I'm talking about the fate of certain African nations, where the rate of inflation tops 1,000%, where it is, literally, less expensive to wipe one's ass with the local currency than it is, to use that currency to go out and buy toilet paper.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to close down the Department of Agriculture. I need that $92.7 billion. I'm sorry.

Please don't think that NASA, or the National Endowment for the Humanities, or the National Science Foundation will survive. They won't. $620 billion is an enormous hole in the nation's finances, and I'm about to throw just about every Executive Branch Department into that hole, in order to try to plug it up. I'm going to TRY to leave the Social Security Administration up and running. And I'm going to TRY to keep Medicare and Medicaid alive. I don't know whether I'll be able to do it.

Anyway, back to the Department of Agriculture. The nation will have to survive, without it. That means no more price supports for farmers. Any farmer who relies on those subsidies to survive, whether it be an agri-business concern or a small family farm, will have to go out of business. The Forest Service will no longer tend the nation's National Forests. The school lunch program, which provides free food to schools across the country, will end. That means poor children will have to find their own food, every day. And, if American kids have to suffer, then so will foreigners; the international program that supplies free food to schools in other countries will also have to stop. Federal meat inspections will have to stop; there will no longer be "USDA Choice" meat on your grocer's shelves. There will no longer be Federal inspections of food coming into the country from overseas. No more Federal stockpiles of grain or dairy products, so whatever price-stabilizing functions that these stockpiles performed, in the past, will end.

The Department of Agriculture is now toast. This is a serious development, people. No, the Department of Agriculture is not authorized by the Constitution. But the nation has relied upon it for a century and a half. The repercussions set in motion by its demise will be enormous. And bringing about that demise will nowhere near plug the hole in the Federal Government's spending.

Is my original decision correct, that the budget of the Department of Defense should not be touched? Should we continue to spend hundreds of billions on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Should the budget of the Department of Homeland Security remain intact, given the current environment of fear, in this country? I guess we'll know the answer to that question, after the 2008 Presidential election. In the mean time, the Federal Government will have to shut down nearly all of its civilian operations, just to balance its budget.

I'm really sorry about this reality. But it is, in fact, reality. Goodbye, Department of Agriculture. That's 92.7 billion saved. $484.5 billion left to go. I'd ask, "What's next?" but the fact is that the answer is, "Almost everything!"

Budget-cutting is grueling work, and $620 billion is a big number to have to cut. Stopping the flow of that much money into the economy, in a single year, would have major repercussions in lost jobs. The people who lose these jobs would probably have to sell their houses, in order to avoid being foreclosed upon. The extra houses on the market would cause real estate prices to tumble. The bubble in house prices would come to an end, and THAT would cause an even greater slow-down. But when the Government is in debt to the tune of $28,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country, the first priority ought to be, "Stop borrowing."

The next cut I'm planning to make is the elimination of the Pell grants program, in the Department of Education. Under this program, the Government hands out free money to lower-income students for the purpose of paying for part of their college tuition. Eliminating this program may well prevent some prospective students from being able to attend a four-year college.

Fortunately, there are less-expensive ways for a low-income student to achieve a four-year college degree. By attending a local community college for the first two years, and then transferring to a four-year university, a college student can expect to cut his or her tuition bill by up to half. Considering the way that loans for college tuition are handed out, paying the remaining bill shouldn't be that difficult.

Yes, it looks like I'm forcing college students to plunge further into debt than they otherwise would, in order to pay for their educations. But I read a recent study which concluded that, on average, college graduates can expect to earn about $24,000 per year MORE than those who don't have a degree. If that's the case, then it might still make economic sense for a graduating high-school senior to consider biting the bullet and attending college. Of course, these students will probably have to major in something other than underwater basket-weaving, in order to command a higher salary, once they graduate from college. Cutting the Pell grant program may well cultivate an atmosphere in which the United States begins to produce more engineers and scientists. And if it doesn't? Well, the country also needs real craftsmen to work in the trades. Electricians, steel workers, masons, tile workers, carpenters, machinists, all of these trades (and more) are suffering a dearth of craftsmanship, these days. Craftsmanship is part of the soul of a country, and the USA needs to revitalize ours. The Pell grant program is history.

That's $12.7 billion saved. $577.2 billion to go. What's next?