So Republicans now want to cut the current spending plan by what amounts to 2%. I find it hard to believe that even the Commie-crats aka Democrats don't think there is 2% of was in a $3.2trillion spending plan. if the proposed $61billion cut was against the $250billion monthly spend it might be slightly disruptive to the economy but $9billion of cuts per month out of $250billion is not that drastic. We should be DEMANDING a $61billion per month cut. At $2.3trillion that would be a good starting point as a federal spending plan. We should aspire for a $2trillion cap on spending until we an no budget deficit.

What do you think is going to happen when, even this 61B in cuts for the last 6 months gets to the senate?

Well I think it's good that we're reducing foreign aid by 20%, but it should be more. I also think some countries can be weened off of our defense of them.

While we are at it, can we please cut the defense department's budget, please.

(02-20-2011 10:11 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  Well I think it's good that we're reducing foreign aid by 20%, but it should be more. I also think some countries can be weened off of our defense of them.

I think all foreign aid should be eliminated as long as we have a budget deficit. In effect we are borrowing money to give to other nations when we can not take care of our own.

(02-20-2011 10:05 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  What do you think is going to happen when, even this 61B in cuts for the last 6 months gets to the senate?

It's DOA in the Senate, but it will start to set a tone for 2012.

(02-20-2011 11:21 PM)CountryRedHawk Wrote:  While we are at it, can we please cut the defense department's budget, please.

(02-20-2011 11:21 PM)CountryRedHawk Wrote:  While we are at it, can we please cut the defense department's budget, please.

This is one problem with the left. I've heard the mantra that it's "the wars" and "the Bush tax cuts" and "the defense budget" that are driving the defiict. Unfortunately, the deficit is so big that those are only minor contributors, at most. I favor some defense cuts, and have laid those out in prior posts, so no need to do so again. But thinking that defense cuts can make a signficant dent in the deficit is wrong; there just isn't that much money there any more.

If you assume no stimulative effect of the "Bush tax cuts" (so that you assume taxable income is unchanged by them, and the total effect is just the rate differential), and if you add that to the total cost of the two wars, you account for only about 25% of the deficit. The other 75% is something else, and that's where we need to make a dent.

And the total defense budget is only about half of the deficit amount, so that even if we spent zero on defense, we'd still have a bigger deficit than in any pre-2008 year.

The things you want to cut aren't the things that are driving the deficit.

For the record, I am extremely unimpressed with the republican effort. I'm beginning to think that neither party has any interest in doing what needs to be done. Couldn't we have at least STARTED with the Bowles-Simpson recommendations? Even though they didn't get the 14 votes that were the goal, they did get a supermajority of the committee.

(02-21-2011 05:38 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-20-2011 11:21 PM)CountryRedHawk Wrote:  While we are at it, can we please cut the defense department's budget, please.

This is one problem with the left. I've heard the mantra that it's "the wars" and "the Bush tax cuts" and "the defense budget" that are driving the defiict. Unfortunately, the deficit is so big that those are only minor contributors, at most. I favor some defense cuts, and have laid those out in prior posts, so no need to do so again. But thinking that defense cuts can make a signficant dent in the deficit is wrong; there just isn't that much money there any more.

If you assume no stimulative effect of the "Bush tax cuts" (so that you assume taxable income is unchanged by them, and the total effect is just the rate differential), and if you add that to the total cost of the two wars, you account for only about 25% of the deficit. The other 75% is something else, and that's where we need to make a dent.

And the total defense budget is only about half of the deficit amount, so that even if we spent zero on defense, we'd still have a bigger deficit than in any pre-2008 year.

The things you want to cut aren't the things that are driving the deficit.

For the record, I am extremely unimpressed with the republican effort. I'm beginning to think that neither party has any interest in doing what needs to be done. Couldn't we have at least STARTED with the Bowles-Simpson recommendations? Even though they didn't get the 14 votes that were the goal, they did get a supermajority of the committee.

I'm with you on this. They got until the first week in March to come up with something. I'm not holding my breath.