A Green Scissors report (Tinyurl.com/18r) from a coalition of environmental and conservative groups has identified $380 billion in wasteful government spending that also harms the environment, and lays out specific areas to make drastic cuts to improve the economy and the environment.

Wasteful government spending comes in many different forms. The most obvious are direct spending on discretionary programs and mandatory programs such as commodity crop payments. Slightly less transparent are tax expenditures, privileges written into the tax code, or below-market giveaways of government resources like timber and hardrock minerals.

Less obvious is preferential government financing for harmful projects, through bonding loans, long-term contracting authority and loan guarantees and risk reduction through government insurance and liability caps.

Green Scissors 2011 represents the interests of four varied groups: Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen, Taxpayers for Common Sense and The Heartland Institute. While all four groups have different missions, histories, goals and ideas about the role of government, they all agree that we can begin to overcome our nation's budgetary and environmental woes by tackling spending that is not only wasteful, but environmentally harmful.

For more information visit greenscissors.com.