(01-27-2010 02:13 PM)RobertN Wrote:   Is that yours or is that Glenn Becks(I think he wrote that on his chalkboard). Btw, it is nice that you are so uncaring. Cut welfare= more homeless. Nice guy. "It is all about me". Greed. THe Republican disease.

Or, hey, here's a thought...maybe those people would learn to take care of themselves.

(01-27-2010 02:13 PM)RobertN Wrote:  

(01-27-2010 01:18 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The 2009 numbers are all squirreled up because of the "stimulus." They show us with receipts of $2.1 trillion and expenditures of $3.9 trilion. So it would take about a 45% decrease across the board. Of that $3.9, about $1.5 trillion is non-discretionary, so we'd be looking at cutting about 75% of discretionary to get there.

If we go back and look at 2008, the numbers are about $2.5 trillion receipts and $2.9 trillion expenditures. We would have to cut back about 15% across the board, or with the same $1.5 trillion nondiscretionary, we would have to cut back $400 billion out of $1,400 trillion, or about 29% of discretionary spending.

At the end of the day, any effective action in this area probably needs to be focused rather than across-the-board.

My 15-15-15 tax approach would generate about $2.7 trillion, plus another $200 billion in excise taxes and other revenues, which would then fund the $2.9 trillion pre-2009 number. Of course, that $2.7 trillion is net of about $400 billion in Boortz-Linder prefunds (using a 30% prefund rate, 15+15). A substantial portion of that money would eliminate the need for amounts currently paid out in welfare, on the order of $150 billion. Cato, among others, have identified about $300-400 billion of wasteful spending that could also be eliminated; a lot of that is corporate welfare that would presumably no longer be needed if the max tax rate was 15%. My health care proposal would cost about $900 billion, but would eliminate the need for Medicaid (saving $350 billion) and also subsidize Medicare to the extent of about $170 billion initially (and Medicare would eventually be phased out, although current beneficiaries would lose nothing and prospective beneficiaries would have a choice to take more now in exchange for less later). So I've funded health care with savings elsewhere.

At the bottom end, the combination of prefund and health care benefits means that nobody with a minimum wage job, and no families with at least one minimum wage earner, would be below the poverty line. At the top end, private businesses would now be looking at a max 15% tax rate plus either being able to eliminate employer funded health care altogether or provide supplemental health care at heavily subsidized rates. I think this makes them ultra-competitive on world markets, and growth would take off as a result of the resulting increase in our worldwide market share.

We'd have a balanced budget at that point, and making US businesses more competitive would be a good start toward eliminating the trade deficit. Focus our energy plan on getting us off foreign oil and we could eliminate the trade deficit plus make huge progress in reducing greenhouse gases. Get rid of those two trillion-dollar drags on the dollar, and we'd be in pretty good shape.

The first thing that I think would happen is that US-based companies would have a huge incentive to repatriate foreign earnings currently sitting offshore, since at a 15% marginal rate those would all come home essentially tax-free. I've seen estimates that this amount is between $4 trillion and $10 trillion (yeah, that's a big range, but solid data are pretty hard to come by). Either way, that much money flowing into the US would have a huge impact on the banking system and investments generally.

Is that yours or is that Glenn Becks(I think he wrote that on his chalkboard). Btw, it is nice that you are so uncaring. Cut welfare= more homeless. Nice guy. "It is all about me". Greed. THe Republican disease.

Robert, it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Reread the sentence beginning with, "At the bottom end," which explains very clearly how the poor will be better off under this proposal, and then let us all know whether you realize how stupid the comment is after doing that. Even better, read it now that I have edited to add another sentence in bold to make it even clearer just how stupid your post is.

For the record, no I did not get any of this from Glen Beck. I've been advocating this approach since long before I even heard of Beck. I don't watch Beck often enough to know for sure, but I doubt he'd go for much of what I wrote. And no, I'm not a republican, since I can't go for the religious right stuff.

That is a mystifyingly stupid comment given what I posted. Even considering that the source is you, it's still incredibly stupid.

Cut Welfare=More Homeless isn't necessarily true. How about taking the waste out of the system?
I don't mean to imply that I can prove there is at least 10% waste in the welfare system, but there is certainly waste. Maybe 1%, maybe 20%. My experience is that when people or businesses have less to work with, they figure out ways to do more with what they have. I'm betting that if you FORCED "the welfare system" to hand out the same benefits to people with a smaller budget, that they'd figure it out. Not an infinite amount, but certainly some.

Why do we NEVER ask the government to tighten their belt/become more efficient when times are tough? Instead, we encourage inefficiency by increasing their budgets and then calling it a "spending cut" when we return them to normal levels, and having them buy things they don't need when they run a surplus to ensure their future funding doesn't get cut.

That's not how things work in my house.

(01-27-2010 03:24 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Cut Welfare=More Homeless isn't necessarily true. How about taking the waste out of the system?
I don't mean to imply that I can prove there is at least 10% waste in the welfare system, but there is certainly waste. Maybe 1%, maybe 20%. My experience is that when people or businesses have less to work with, they figure out ways to do more with what they have. I'm betting that if you FORCED "the welfare system" to hand out the same benefits to people with a smaller budget, that they'd figure it out. Not an infinite amount, but certainly some.

Why do we NEVER ask the government to tighten their belt/become more efficient when times are tough? Instead, we encourage inefficiency by increasing their budgets and then calling it a "spending cut" when we return them to normal levels, and having them buy things they don't need when they run a surplus to ensure their future funding doesn't get cut.

That's not how things work in my house.

Amen. On the welfare issue, the problem is how you determine who really needs welfare and how much. If you could do it one person at a time you could probably do it fairly, but the numbers are pretty big for that so you end up with inefficiencies and people taking advantage of it.

In response to Robert and people who think like him, or think that all "non-liberals" are heartless...

MY response, and honestly that of many others (though certainly not all) is not based in wanting to deny assistance to those who need it and/or even a very liberal interpretation of what that means... It is simply based upon the same principles that are used in your home or in any reasonably run business of properly allocating resources. Without getting into arguments about whether we're talking about 20% or 80% of people and businesses... there are certainly many GOOD people and businesses who do MUCH good with their fairly earned revenue. A big part of any family or any business is to contain costs where you can. I just don't see that as an important part of the government... and i apply that equally across all sectors of the government. We're talking about such huge numbers, would anyone in Congress REALLY say "I'll vote for this bill at 1.725 billion dollars... but not 1.726 billion... much less 1 trillion... That's $1mm that we're not holding anyone accountable for. You do that often enough and it adds up to real money... Much less the billion dollar difference between 2 trillion and 1.999 trillion.

I want government smaller because these millions and billions add up... NOT because I generally want to deny services/aid. Certainly there are things I might personally disagree with... but I might disagree with them less if I were comfortable that the money being spent was being spent wisely.

I think comments like these apply across the political board, with the only major difference being where individuals expect the majority of the excesses lay... the left thinking in corporate subsidies and the military and the right in social programs and aid.

Why does it matter? Why can't we agree that there is waste and take steps to remedy the problem? Because politicians on both sides want to PROTECT those millions and billions of waste because they ultimately work their way into the pockets of their supporters.

I get that the left doesn't trust corporations... but I don't get that they don't trust corporations to find ways to cut costs to make money. Let companies come in and create efficiencies in government on a contingency basis, taking a portion of the savings as their fee. The government will still have oversight to determine that certain things CAN'T be cut, or at least not to the degree recommended... but there wouldn't be this "they're trying to take away your medicare" b.s. actually there would be... but there shouldn't be

(01-27-2010 02:13 PM)RobertN Wrote:  

(01-27-2010 01:18 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The 2009 numbers are all squirreled up because of the "stimulus." They show us with receipts of $2.1 trillion and expenditures of $3.9 trilion. So it would take about a 45% decrease across the board. Of that $3.9, about $1.5 trillion is non-discretionary, so we'd be looking at cutting about 75% of discretionary to get there.

If we go back and look at 2008, the numbers are about $2.5 trillion receipts and $2.9 trillion expenditures. We would have to cut back about 15% across the board, or with the same $1.5 trillion nondiscretionary, we would have to cut back $400 billion out of $1,400 trillion, or about 29% of discretionary spending.

At the end of the day, any effective action in this area probably needs to be focused rather than across-the-board.

My 15-15-15 tax approach would generate about $2.7 trillion, plus another $200 billion in excise taxes and other revenues, which would then fund the $2.9 trillion pre-2009 number. Of course, that $2.7 trillion is net of about $400 billion in Boortz-Linder prefunds (using a 30% prefund rate, 15+15). A substantial portion of that money would eliminate the need for amounts currently paid out in welfare, on the order of $150 billion. Cato, among others, have identified about $300-400 billion of wasteful spending that could also be eliminated; a lot of that is corporate welfare that would presumably no longer be needed if the max tax rate was 15%. My health care proposal would cost about $900 billion, but would eliminate the need for Medicaid (saving $350 billion) and also subsidize Medicare to the extent of about $170 billion initially (and Medicare would eventually be phased out, although current beneficiaries would lose nothing and prospective beneficiaries would have a choice to take more now in exchange for less later). So I've funded health care with savings elsewhere.

At the bottom end, the combination of prefund and health care benefits means that nobody with a minimum wage job, and no families with at least one minimum wage earner, would be below the poverty line. At the top end, private businesses would now be looking at a max 15% tax rate plus either being able to eliminate employer funded health care altogether or provide supplemental health care at heavily subsidized rates. I think this makes them ultra-competitive on world markets, and growth would take off as a result of the resulting increase in our worldwide market share.

We'd have a balanced budget at that point, and making US businesses more competitive would be a good start toward eliminating the trade deficit. Focus our energy plan on getting us off foreign oil and we could eliminate the trade deficit plus make huge progress in reducing greenhouse gases. Get rid of those two trillion-dollar drags on the dollar, and we'd be in pretty good shape.

The first thing that I think would happen is that US-based companies would have a huge incentive to repatriate foreign earnings currently sitting offshore, since at a 15% marginal rate those would all come home essentially tax-free. I've seen estimates that this amount is between $4 trillion and $10 trillion (yeah, that's a big range, but solid data are pretty hard to come by). Either way, that much money flowing into the US would have a huge impact on the banking system and investments generally.

Is that yours or is that Glenn Becks(I think he wrote that on his chalkboard). Btw, it is nice that you are so uncaring. Cut welfare= more homeless. Nice guy. "It is all about me". Greed. THe Republican disease.

BobbiN, we cut welfare and your ass is on the street....

The political class over Promised (unfunded liabilities) and do not have the resources to pay them off. If you increase taxes investment shrinks, unemployment rises and there is no growth. Your problem does not get better it gets worse. Our political institutions are not structured to solve problems, but to maintain the status quo ( thus you move backward), whether it is to protect the large corps or the political machines (power). Lower taxes hurt the BIGGEST corporations. Lower taxes incentives new ideas amd capital moves from the old idea to the new idea. This depression is going to get real ugly.

For a different perspective and more optimistic view of our debt situation.
Minyanvilee - How bad is America debt situation . He argues that Europe & Japan are in a far worse debt problem and their economies have grown. In comparison he states America is in much better shape and can handle higher debt levels.

(01-27-2010 09:20 PM)NIU05 Wrote:  The political class over Promised (unfunded liabilities) and do not have the resources to pay them off. If you increase taxes investment shrinks, unemployment rises and there is no growth. Your problem does not get better it gets worse. Our political institutions are not structured to solve problems, but to maintain the status quo ( thus you move backward), whether it is to protect the large corps or the political machines (power). Lower taxes hurt the BIGGEST corporations. Lower taxes incentives new ideas amd capital moves from the old idea to the new idea. This depression is going to get real ugly.

For a different perspective and more optimistic view of our debt situation.
Minyanvilee - How bad is America debt situation . He argues that Europe & Japan are in a far worse debt problem and their economies have grown. In comparison he states America is in much better shape and can handle higher debt levels.

My counterpoint would be that he is describing the situation as it exists today, and I expect it to get substantially worse in the near future, because:
1. Trillion dollar a year federal deficits (which I expect to continue indefinitely)
2. Trillion dollar a year trade deficits (which I expect to get worse if and when oil prices increase)
3. Huge off-balance-sheet unfunded future social security and Mecicare commitments
4. Extent to which we have borrowed and will borrow from China, who may end up being our rival for world supremacy; being in debt big-time to your rival puts you at a huge disadvantage.

America's best days are behind us. We're a decaying society. Unemployment will stay above 8%, and inflation will start to skyrocket. Not a pretty picture.

Owl, I am not in the inflation camp. Why? There is no credit expansion. Banks are not lending, there is a lack of credit worthy customers to lend to. Consumers are DECREASING their credit card balances.Installment debt is a key indicator, the outstanding balance continues to shrink. Just the posts on this this thread,.... Balance the books... don't borrow..... That is happening on a personal level as well. Credit expansion is a key factor regarding inflation and it is not happening. Our system has been built on the juice/debt and the juice is being drained away.

Regarding China, the Minyanville site had a piece on the bubble that is China. We ***** and moan about our incompetent leaders and their polices, the Chinese make our guys look like geniuses. Their GDP numbers are all BS, they piss away dollars day and night. Remember they are communists they have no idea on how to give incentives for an economy.

(01-27-2010 10:18 PM)NIU05 Wrote:  Owl, I am not in the inflation camp. Why? There is no credit expansion. Banks are not lending, there is a lack of credit worthy customers to lend to. Consumers are DECREASING their credit card balances.Installment debt is a key indicator, the outstanding balance continues to shrink. Just the posts on this this thread,.... Balance the books... don't borrow..... That is happening on a personal level as well. Credit expansion is a key factor regarding inflation and it is not happening. Our system has been built on the juice/debt and the juice is being drained away.

Regarding China, the Minyanville site had a piece on the bubble that is China. We ***** and moan about our incompetent leaders and their polices, the Chinese make our guys look like geniuses. Their GDP numbers are all BS, they piss away dollars day and night. Remember they are communists they have no idea on how to give incentives for an economy.

We are some time away from hyperinflation. That danger will occur when somebody has to figure out how to repay some of this debt we are running up. I'm at least as worried that things could totally crater before then, and asset values could plummet. What I don't see as very likely is that we'll get through all this okay. Just too many risks.

Agree that China doesn't have it figured out. But we may be even worse. In fact, I think we probably are.

I simply don't see how any of this can work well. And I've been trying to get Obama supporters to explain to me how they think it's going to work, but the best answer I get is, "At least, he's better than Bush." One, I'm not sure that he is. Two, so what if he is, that's not much of a recommendation.

Ron Paul is the only one I've seen with a practical answer to this. We have to drastically cut military spending. We need to close almost all our 700 overseas bases and bring our troops home. Reduce the size of our military to a defensive force only. Additionally we have to cut entitlement programs. Significantly raise the age for social security and reduce benefits across the board. If we do this we can pay off our debts and emerge strong again.

(01-28-2010 08:41 AM)Jugnaut Wrote:  Ron Paul is the only one I've seen with a practical answer to this. We have to drastically cut military spending. We need to close almost all our 700 overseas bases and bring our troops home. Reduce the size of our military to a defensive force only. Additionally we have to cut entitlement programs. Significantly raise the age for social security and reduce benefits across the board. If we do this we can pay off our debts and emerge strong again.

Just curious - at what age would you suggest for Social Security to begin and at what benefit level? Are you suggesting 75 years of age before benefits and only a couple hundred dollars a month?

(01-28-2010 09:11 AM)Crebman Wrote:  

(01-28-2010 08:41 AM)Jugnaut Wrote:  Ron Paul is the only one I've seen with a practical answer to this. We have to drastically cut military spending. We need to close almost all our 700 overseas bases and bring our troops home. Reduce the size of our military to a defensive force only. Additionally we have to cut entitlement programs. Significantly raise the age for social security and reduce benefits across the board. If we do this we can pay off our debts and emerge strong again.

Just curious - at what age would you suggest for Social Security to begin and at what benefit level? Are you suggesting 75 years of age before benefits and only a couple hundred dollars a month?

If there's anything that's political suicide, it's messing with social security. Even small changes arouse retired people. Anything this massive would be a non-starter. And with the baby boomers starting to hit retirement age, even more so.

(01-28-2010 09:15 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(01-28-2010 09:11 AM)Crebman Wrote:  

(01-28-2010 08:41 AM)Jugnaut Wrote:  Ron Paul is the only one I've seen with a practical answer to this. We have to drastically cut military spending. We need to close almost all our 700 overseas bases and bring our troops home. Reduce the size of our military to a defensive force only. Additionally we have to cut entitlement programs. Significantly raise the age for social security and reduce benefits across the board. If we do this we can pay off our debts and emerge strong again.

Just curious - at what age would you suggest for Social Security to begin and at what benefit level? Are you suggesting 75 years of age before benefits and only a couple hundred dollars a month?

If there's anything that's political suicide, it's messing with social security. Even small changes arouse retired people. Anything this massive would be a non-starter. And with the baby boomers starting to hit retirement age, even more so.

On the flip side, he could continure to gain ground with the younger voters. He favors an opt-out clause for workers under 30 (or maybe it's 35) so that you won't have to throw money down the rathole for 30+ years until the SS Ponzi runs out. Remember, Paul already had the second highest support level among the under 30 crowd in the last election, behind Obama. He wants to use the scaleback in military spending to fund the current SS obligations for those who have been paying in for years, so I think many senior citizens would be okay with it.

Well someone needs to tackle this question. How can we pay off our debt, deficit in 50 years? I want a clean balance sheet in 50 years. What do we have to do? This could at least get people thinking the right way.

(01-28-2010 09:15 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(01-28-2010 09:11 AM)Crebman Wrote:  

(01-28-2010 08:41 AM)Jugnaut Wrote:  Ron Paul is the only one I've seen with a practical answer to this. We have to drastically cut military spending. We need to close almost all our 700 overseas bases and bring our troops home. Reduce the size of our military to a defensive force only. Additionally we have to cut entitlement programs. Significantly raise the age for social security and reduce benefits across the board. If we do this we can pay off our debts and emerge strong again.

Just curious - at what age would you suggest for Social Security to begin and at what benefit level? Are you suggesting 75 years of age before benefits and only a couple hundred dollars a month?

If there's anything that's political suicide, it's messing with social security. Even small changes arouse retired people. Anything this massive would be a non-starter. And with the baby boomers starting to hit retirement age, even more so.

I think you can change Social Security payouts. They are already tiered depending on when you retire. They can continue to use that method as an incentive for people to retire later.

(01-28-2010 10:37 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Well someone needs to tackle this question. How can we pay off our debt, deficit in 50 years? I want a clean balance sheet in 50 years. What do we have to do? This could at least get people thinking the right way.

Actually Mach, I think this is the wrong way to pose the question... because politicians will claim to have the answer... creating tons of graphs and charts with a multitude of projections, and they will put them before the CBO who will say, yes... if every one of these projections bears out and nobody changes anything else, this will do what it claims... which is MEANINGLESS. All they are doing is gaming the system...

The question is... You're spending more than you're taking in. Where can you make cuts without reducing output? Unfortunately, you'll have to create an incentive to save money that is greater than the incentive to spend it... and that is to offer in some way a percentage of the savings to those who save it.

I think it's a start because I've never heard of anyone (maybe Clinton) talk about having a plan of balancing the books.

(01-28-2010 09:15 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(01-28-2010 09:11 AM)Crebman Wrote:  

(01-28-2010 08:41 AM)Jugnaut Wrote:  Ron Paul is the only one I've seen with a practical answer to this. We have to drastically cut military spending. We need to close almost all our 700 overseas bases and bring our troops home. Reduce the size of our military to a defensive force only. Additionally we have to cut entitlement programs. Significantly raise the age for social security and reduce benefits across the board. If we do this we can pay off our debts and emerge strong again.

Just curious - at what age would you suggest for Social Security to begin and at what benefit level? Are you suggesting 75 years of age before benefits and only a couple hundred dollars a month?

If there's anything that's political suicide, it's messing with social security. Even small changes arouse retired people. Anything this massive would be a non-starter. And with the baby boomers starting to hit retirement age, even more so.

I agree about the political suicide. However, how fair is it to look at someone that has paid into the system (basically paid to current retirees) for 40 to 45 years, and then say "ahh, sorry - we pissed away all the contributions you made for 40 years - you can't retire until you're 70.......better yet, just work until you die.

Look, I am all for reducing/eliminating the debt, and I consider myself a fiscal conservative, but i would rather cut military spending, etc. before I screw over people that are 58 years old and have paid into the SS system for 40 years. I just don't think it is right to basically tell those people - sorry, you don't get to retire.

(01-28-2010 12:58 PM)Crebman Wrote:  

(01-28-2010 09:15 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(01-28-2010 09:11 AM)Crebman Wrote:  

(01-28-2010 08:41 AM)Jugnaut Wrote:  Ron Paul is the only one I've seen with a practical answer to this. We have to drastically cut military spending. We need to close almost all our 700 overseas bases and bring our troops home. Reduce the size of our military to a defensive force only. Additionally we have to cut entitlement programs. Significantly raise the age for social security and reduce benefits across the board. If we do this we can pay off our debts and emerge strong again.

Just curious - at what age would you suggest for Social Security to begin and at what benefit level? Are you suggesting 75 years of age before benefits and only a couple hundred dollars a month?

If there's anything that's political suicide, it's messing with social security. Even small changes arouse retired people. Anything this massive would be a non-starter. And with the baby boomers starting to hit retirement age, even more so.

I agree about the political suicide. However, how fair is it to look at someone that has paid into the system (basically paid to current retirees) for 40 to 45 years, and then say "ahh, sorry - we pissed away all the contributions you made for 40 years - you can't retire until you're 70.......better yet, just work until you die.

Look, I am all for reducing/eliminating the debt, and I consider myself a fiscal conservative, but i would rather cut military spending, etc. before I screw over people that are 58 years old and have paid into the SS system for 40 years. I just don't think it is right to basically tell those people - sorry, you don't get to retire.

They should've planned for retirement. Counting on SS is not a plan. They've known it's broke for 20-30 years at least. And I would raise the age to 75 probably or whatever the average death age is. When it was created 65 was the age that the vast majority would be dead at. We need to cut Military spending and entitlements drastically to defeat our debts. Entitlements are the most dangerous area. Our unfunded liabilities from them could bankrupt the country.

And I never said it wouldn't be hard. It is politically extremely tough. But the other option is bankruptcy/hyperinflation. I'd rather have an America left at the end of this, rather than implode completely. How many people counting on SS can survive in a country without any money and a total collapse? Far less than could if we cut out SS I"m sure.