'Penny Plan' would be possible to accomplish

Conservative commentator Sean Hannity has proposed a plan for balancing the federal budget that has naturally been criticized as overly simplistic and unrealistic.

His "penny plan" would require the government to cut one penny from every dollar it spends every year for five years.

It's true the plan probably doesn't have a chance, in light of ongoing gridlock in Washington, despite this week's budget compromise and promise to avoid another government shutdown for a couple of years.

Anyone who handles a family budget, however, would be able, with a little effort, to meet requirements of the plan, if not deeper cuts if need be. Many of us have been forced to make sacrifices of much more than 1 percent if circumstances require.

It should be even easier for Washington, if Sen. Tom Coburn's annual "Wastebook" is to be believed.

The Oklahoma Republican focused the spotlight on the Department of Defense, which is an easy target, thanks to the ongoing drawdown in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The American military is leaving 2,000 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, at $500,000 each to build, behind in Afghanistan to be destroyed rather than delivered to other bases.

It doesn't end there.

Congress authorized the purchase of 21 C-27 transport planes manufactured in Italy, despite testimony from a former Air Force chief of staff in August 2012 that the Air Force didn't want the plan and could do the job better with the C-130s already in the inventory.

After $631 million was spent on the planes, they were mothballed in the desert before any of them flew a single operational mission.

But it's not just the military. The State Department spent $630 million to attract people to its Facebook and Twitter accounts, NASA is spending $3 million to find out how Congress works, the National Endowment for the Humanities spent nearly a million dollars over three years to explore the origins of popular romance in multi-media, and Healthcare.gov cost $319 to build and more than twice that to market and publicize.

And it's not just Washington. Millions of dollars of waste and outright theft have been discovered in recent investigations by the Nebraska state auditor, and it wouldn't be hard to find at least some savings in the budgets of every level of government.

State lids work against the idea of cutting a penny a year from every dollar of spending -- a lid turns into a floor for administrators worried about potential expenses in future years.

Still, the penny plan could be accomplished, no matter what spending is involved.

In this upcoming election year, it's up to us, the voters, to elect representative who will manage the public coffers with the same care they do the family budget.