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$5B? Biden's proposed FY 2023 budget calls for $185,629,000,000 - 185.6 billion - for DOE.

Try this: Assuming the Dems and Rinos will fund it until the sun burns out, shut it down BUT fund it for 1 more year and lock down employee head count.. Anyone can leave for any reason, no one can be hired or transfer in. On Oct 1 - the legal date for having Congressionally appropriated funds to spend - every existing employee gets an equal share of the budget dollars after fixed expenses (building rent, office equipment leases, etc.) are paid AND exemption from all federal taxes until Dec 31 of the third full year after agency abolishment; that's 39 months. Signing the receipt for the severance check is also signing a DOU for a lifetime ban on receiving any remuneration (look it up) from the federal government except for salary, benefit and retirement commensurate with rank in the active duty US military.

Divide 55K employees into $124.5B (2/3 of the $186,629B budget remaining after paying fixed and shut down costs and the cost of demoing the building and planting grass where it stood) and each employee gets $2.26M tax free and no federal taxes of any kind for 39 months. It would be hard to complain about that (although I'm certain some lefties, somewhere, would). We get rid of a worthless agency that never should have existed in the first place for the price of one year's budget. I'd say that would be cheap and a good deal.

If the fed dot gov just HAS to spend the money because they're in the habit, 1% of the 2023 DOE budget is $1.86B; divided by 144K school age kids (K-12) is $13K/child. Send 33% to each kid annually as a "primary and secondary education voucher," reserve the rest as "college scholarship funds for performing students" ("performing student" = GPA 3.0 and greater during a constantly "rolling window" of 3 consecutive semesters) in STEM degree programs and abolish all other federal education funding, especially fed-guaranteed higher ed loans. Have those monies adminstered by STATE agencies, not a single federal fingerprint ever lands on them.

Anon 2

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