WASHINGTON — Like Americans trying to raise quick cash by unloading their unwanted goods, the federal government is considering a novel way to reduce the deficit: holding the equivalent of a garage sale.

Deep within President Obama’s proposals to raise revenue and reduce the deficit lies a method that has garnered bipartisan support, something rare in Washington these days. It involves selling an island, courthouses, maybe an airstrip, generally idle or underused vehicles, roads, buildings, land — even the airwaves used to broadcast television.

Among the listings: Plum Island, N.Y., off the North Fork of Long Island, which the government has already begun marketing as 840 acres of “sandy shoreline, beautiful views and a harbor.” As former home to the federal Animal Disease Center, it may need a bit of “biohazard remediation,” making it a real fixer-upper.

Many conservatives — including Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and the budget experts at the Cato Institute — support the broad idea of shrinking the government by selling parts of it. Democrats like the idea of virtually painless revenue-raising. Whether Congress can pass any bill in the current atmosphere, however, is far from certain.