When a company falls on difficult times, one of the things that seems to happen is they reduce their staff and workers. The remaining workers must find ways to continue to do a good job or risk that their job would be eliminated as well.
Wall street and the media normally congratulate the CEO for making this type of "tough decision", and the board of directors gives upper corporate management big bonuses.
Our government should not be immune from similar risks.
Therefore:
Reduce the House of Representatives from the current 435 members to 218 members.
Reduce Senate members from 100 to 50 (one per State). Then, reduce their remaining staff by 25%.
Accomplish this over the next 8 years (two steps/two elections) and of course this would require some redistricting.