Last week, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, announced the "Spending Reduction Act" that would cut $2.5 trillion over 10 years.  This is by far the most ambitious and far-reaching proposal by the new majority to cut federal government spending. Jordan's bill, which will have a companion bill introduced in the Senate by Senator Jim DeMint (R), would impose deep and broad cuts across the federal government. It includes both budget-wide cuts on non-defense discretionary spending back to 2006 levels and proposes the elimination or drastic reduction of more than 50 government programs.  More details are available at The Daily Caller, but this is only one of many plans to cut federal spending

Another plan, to prevent deficit reduction from being used as an excuse for tax hikes, is to eliminate Congress's  "Pay-As-You-Go"rule and replace it with a "Cut-As-You-Go" rule.  This proposed rule would require that any legislation that seeks to increase mandatory spending (which is spending that once added to the federal budget recurs year after year and is thus permanent) also cuts spending by a similar amount somewhere else. "If it is your intention to create a new government program, you must also terminate or reduce spending on an existing government program of equal or greater size-in the very same bill," said Representative John Boehner, Speaker of the House.  Boehner said the CUTGO idea was conceived by Senator Roy Blunt, a former member of the House Republican leadership. "As [Blunt] put it, 'Let's turn the activists for big government on each other, instead of letting them gang up on the taxpayer,' Through this public discussion, we might end up finding out that neither program has a whole lot of merit in the first place."

In still another plan, Senator Jim DeMint (R) proposed tying an upcoming vote to raise the $14.294 trillion national debt ceiling to a balanced budget amendment. This could allow one last gasp on deficit spending, or become just lip service if the amendment never passes.

And, small efforts to cut the spending are still ongoing.  YouCut recently offered more ideas you can vote on, such as ending the Presidential Election Fund.  If we quit spending our federal tax dollars on electing our politicians, we could save about $520 million over ten years.  The program, begun by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R), also proposes eliminating the Jobs Corps.