SAVE

From cost-saving ideas submitted by federal employees as part of President Obama's SAVE (Securing Americans' Value and Efficiency) award program - - as published on Page 18 of the February 2011 issue of Harper's - -

• Remove urinals that are installed aboard ships.  The salt water mixed with urine creates calcium buildup.  This buildup clogs pipes, which require continuous maintenance.
• Urinalysis is a necessary requirement to ensure servicemen and women are prepared for duty, but have you ever thought about the cost to ship all that pee to the drug-testing lab?
• Stop renaming government buildings, parks, and bridges that have already been named.
• Once every three years have early retirement and get rid of some dead weight who do no more than come to work and gripe.
• Have two stretch breaks a day as a group at the office, each consisting of five to ten minutes.
• I suggest a new invention to generate power like wind turbines but without the wind or water current.  I believe I may have figured out how to do it, but I need help.
• Eliminate the Secret Service for all ex-officials.
• I suggest we ship our prisoners out of the country and contract out the service.
• Student should grow their own food.  They would learn about growing the food as well as save money for the schools.
• Stop giving people in public housing air-conditioning, dishwashers, washers, and dryers.
• Do away with going to the moon.  Been there and done that.
• Generally the default font setting in Microsoft Word, and most email programs are Calibri or Arial.  Printing in these default fonts has substantially higher cost than using less ink-intensive fonts.
• I recommend that we stop asking government employees for ideas that will not be used.  This could result in a savings of $50,000 per year or more.  The basis for this savings is 5k D.O.D. employees participated last year x 10 min. per submission x $60 per hr.