Given President Obama’s abdication in presenting select priorities to the Congress, Selfish Citizenship took the initiative to spell out the top seven legislative priorities for 2013 at the beginning of the year.

The federal government funds many small programs unrelated to its core function as a federal government.  While it has been argued such programs are too small to worry about, candidate Romney had a good point, “Should the government be borrowing money to fund these programs?”

These programs should be eliminated, not just cut.  It is essential that, as a means to establish the principle, the federal government eliminate such programs.  Further, these should be examined for opportunities to transition such efforts to private entities in civil society as a proof of concept for larger programs that should no longer be within the domain of the federal government.

Such small programs would include funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, and funding to support racial segregation in higher education (a.k.a. HBCUs through the Higher Education Act).

In summary of the seven legislative priorities, Congress needs to take the lead in fixing the problems created by prior Congresses.  All of these man-made problems were the predictable consequence of choices made in the Congress.  Now is the time for Congress to choose differently and these seven New Year’s Resolutions for Congress are a solid start.

Extra Point: In “The Four Habits that Form Habits”, Leo Babauta cites the #1 habit building habit as “Start Exceedingly Small”.

Links to all the priorities that Congress should set:

#1 Reduce Regulations
#2 Block Grant Funds to States
#3 Eliminate Small Programs
#4 Sell Federal Assets
#5 Tax Reform
#6 Oversight
#7 Defund ObamaCare