If You're Looking for Another $80 Billion in Savings...

Key quote from Wednesday's State of the Union address:

"Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected." [Emphasis POGO's]

As Mandy noted the other day on our Twitter feed, there's actually ample opportunity for savings in security-related programs. Back in February, POGO presented five recommendations for increasing revenue and cutting costs and no fewer than three of them relate directly to security matters.

These three reforms — improving weapons acquisition, ensuring resources for and implementing recommendations made by agency auditors, and reducing the number of deployed nuclear warheads — could lead to savings of up to $81.7 billion.

Here's hoping that an exemption from a budget freeze will not necessarily mean an exemption from close budget scrutiny. Find all five recommendations below the jump, or head straight to our report for more details.

Recommendations	Estimated Revenue/Savings
1. Congress and the Department of Defense need to make fundamental weapons acquisition reforms and redefine the military's 21st-century priorities in order to reduce wasteful defense spending.	$39 billion
2. Federal agencies and Congress should work together to ensure that government auditors and Inspectors General have sufficient funding, staffing, and resources to expose wasteful and abusive spending. In addition, agencies should make every effort to implement the recommendations made by these oversight bodies, or at least provide a satisfactory explanation for not doing so. Experience has shown that increased funding for auditors and investigators ultimately results in greater savings for taxpayers.	$31.5 billion
3. The Department of Energy should downblend its excess highly enriched uranium and sell it as fuel for nuclear reactors.	$21.6 billion
4. Congress and the Department of Energy should substantially reduce the number of deployed nuclear warheads, which would save money not only on the refurbishment of unneeded warheads but also on associated delivery systems. In addition, Congress should consider eliminating funding for wasteful and unnecessary nuclear weapons facilities and plutonium pits.	$11.2 billion
5. The Department of the Interior should phase out its Royalty-In-Kind program and return to a market-priced Royalty-In-Value program.	Unknown
TOTAL	$103.3 billion

-- Bryan Rahija