Washington – Republican Ted Cruz Vows To Abolish Four U.S. Cabinet Agencies

Washington – Republican White House contender Ted Cruz pledged on Tuesday that if he wins the presidency, he would eliminate four cabinet agencies, including the departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, and Housing and Urban Development.

Cruz, who rolled out the plan in an opinion piece in the National Review magazine, reiterated his intention to eliminate the government tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service “to break apart the federal leviathan that has ruled Washington and crept into our lives.”

He discussed the plan during the Republican debate on Fox Business Network in Milwaukee, ticking off each of the agencies and the IRS.

Those cuts, he said, would help to fund the flat tax of 10 percent that he would press the U.S. Congress to enact if elected.

On his website he lists an additional 25 agencies, bureaus and commissions he identifies as unnecessary and worthy of cutting, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, calling them “merely a start.”

Cruz also proposed that exports would be tax-free, but he would levy a 16-percent tax on imports.

Citing the independent Tax Foundation, Cruz said his plan is estimated to reduce taxes by $3.6 trillion over 10 years and revenues by $768 billion. He defended the gap by vowing that the lower tax rates would stimulate enough growth to cover it.

He also said he would end subsidies to sugar producers in order to help fund the defense budget. Cruz wrote in his plan that he would put a hiring freeze on federal civilian employees across the executive branch.